The Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) on Thursday claimed that the ITF’s Davis Cup Committee had ruled that India has to play its tie in Pakistan as per the original schedule. The PTF claimed that the ITF had ruled in favour of Pakistan after India had said they had security concerns over sending their team to the country. “The ITF has said that Pakistan will retain its hosting rights and has rejected the security concerns raised by India,” a senior PTF official said.
The Davis Cup Committee has accepted the PTF presentation against the All Indian Tennis Association’s (AITA) refusal to send its Davis Cup team to Pakistan for the Group I Playoff tie in Islamabad in the first week of February.
“The ITF has made it clear that if AITA fails to send its team to Islamabad, the tie would be awarded to Pakistan as there is no basis for India having security concerns about playing in Pakistan,” the official said.
The ITF also said that providing security to the visiting team was the responsibility of the host and they had in recent times successfully hosted other teams without any incidents, the official said.
The Indian federation had recently told the Davis Cup Committee that it is not possible for them to send their team to Islamabad for the tie and called for it to be organised at a neutral venue.
PTF president Salim Saifullah Khan said he had taken up the case with the ITF and a presentation was made to the Davis Cup committee recently.
India also didn’t travel to Pakistan for the Asia Cup cricket matches in August and September resulting in majority of the matches being played in Sri Lanka, with just four games in Pakistan.
In 2019, the Indian tennis team had refused to play in Pakistan and the Davis Cup tie was moved to Kazakhstan on the advice of the ITF.
