ISLAMABAD: It was a perfect opening day for the home team as Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Aqeel Khan posted straight victories against Iran in the first round of Asia Oceania Group II Davis Cup tie at the Pakistan Sports Complex here on Friday.

Their victories provided Pakistan 2-0 lead.

Tennis fans in Pakistan welcomed the tie on home soil as they had been waiting for it since 12 long years.

Enjoying full support from local crowd, national champion Aqeel Khan after facing little resistance from Shahin Khaledan posted straight sets victory (7-6, 6-4, 6-2) in two hours and 11 minutes.

Pakistan’s tennis star Aisam-ul-Haq, who earned good name in international circuit, bolstered the home team advantage by outclassing Anoosha Shahgholi also in straight sets (6-1, 6-2, 6-2) in one hour and 18 minutes.

In their post match press briefing, both tennis stars were over the moon.

Aisam said Aqeel’s victory gave him advantage to play free and aggressive game.

“The victory of Aqeel gave me a chance to easily execute my game plan,” Aisam said.

He added that Pakistan had edge over Iran, whose players were not good on hard surfaces as Pakistani players were.

“Secondly, we had full support of home crowd,” he said.

“Though I made some errors, I played according to the plan,” Aqeel said, while non-playing captain Rashid Malik appreciated excellent performance of his team.

“I hope we continue our winning streak in the next matches,” he said.

Earlier, Aqeel had to face strong resistance from Shahin in the first set as both players exhibited quality game by playing superb forehand, slice and controlled drop-shots.

After a tough fight, Aqeel won it by 7-6. He kept his opponent under pressure in the next two sets by winning them 6-4 and 6-2.

Both the players played from the baseline throughout the match, however the Iranian player had no answer to match speed of Aqeel.

It was a cakewalk for Aisam against Anoosha.

In the first game of the first set, he played some powerful strokes, easily finishing the game.

Then in the next game, the Iranian player returned strongly and won the game comfortably. It was one all. But from that stage, Aisam, who was playing serve and volley game did not look back, comfortably winning the next five games.

He played superb solid serve to earn a number of aces while there was no match of his slice and wise drop-shots.

In the next set, both players fought well, as it was deuces when Anoosha won a crucial point to win the game.

He was responded by Aisam in the next game, wining it on deuce. Then again Shahgholi made a comeback, winning the game.

At that stage of the second set, the Iranian player had (2-1) lead, but Aisam carried the day, finishing the second set (6-2).

In the third set, which turned out to be the decider, Shahgholi won the first game but Aisam taught him a good tennis lesson in the next five games before the Iranian won the seventh game. The last game was also won by Aisam to win the set 6-2.

The Davis Cup BNP Paribas is being held here at Pakistan Sports Complex’s refurbished synthetic courts.

On Saturday, Abid Ali Akbar and Abid Mushtaq will face Iranian pair of Ablorz Akhavan and Hamid Reza in a doubles match at 11am. However, the final lineups could be changed before the match as per ITF rules.

Then on Sunday, which is the final day, two singles matches will be held on reverse pattern.

PTF president Salim Saifullah, secretary Khalid Rehmani, patron Dilawar Abbas, a large number of tennis players and spectators enjoyed the revival of Davis Cup.

Published in Dawn February 4th, 2017