Tennis News: India draw Pakistan for away tie in September

The All India Tennis Association found itself in a fix after India was drawn to play an away Davis Cup Zonal tie against Pakistan in mid-september. Security issues and India’s continuing tensions with the neighbour means that the Indian Tennis association will have to take permission of the government before they give go ahead to their players to cross the border. No Indian Davis Cup squad has travelled to Pakistan since March 1964 and in that tie, held in Lahore, India had won 4-0. Now, It's an away tie for India since the last tie between the two nations was played in Mumbai in 2006, which India won 3-2. Current non-playing captain Mahesh Bhupathi was part of that team, which also had legendary Leander Paes, Prakash Amritraj and Rohan Bopanna. Before that, India and Pakistan played at neutral venue in Malaysia in 1973. Not to forget that Hong Kong had refused to travel to Pakistan in 2017 citing security reasons and were subsequently relegated to a lower tier and fined 5000 dollars by the International Tennis Federation. They also had to pay a hefty amount to the Pakistan federation. Sources in the governament claimed it is premature to take a call now especially with the general election coming up. The possibility of neutral venue for the team event looks difficult if ITF’s action against Hong Kong is considered a precedent.