Abid & Sara pockets 3rd SNGPL All-Pakistan Tennis Championship-2019 titles

Abid Ali Akbar won the third SNGPL All-Pakistan Tennis Championship-2019, men’s singles category as he outclassed Ahmed Choudhary in straight sets in the final played here at Senator Dilawar Abbas PTF Complex, Islamabad. 

Abid had the experience of playing in the USA and other international events while he is also a regular member of Pakistan Davis Cup squad while Ahmed CH had won a major tournament few years back as he defeated Pakistan’s longest serving number 1 player Aqeel Khan in the final.

The final started on a fast tempo, both players tried to take early advantage and put each other under pressure but it was Abid, who slowly and steadily started to settle down and played some powerful passing shots down the line. He managed to break third serve of Ahmed, which was enough to give him first set 6-3 in 33 minutes.

The second set started on same fashion, Ahmed was fully aware, he had to win the set to stay in the final, or else it would be curtains. Both players were involved in long rallies and were not ready to go down without a fight.

Both managed to hold onto their respective serves till the 9th game when Abid finally managed to break the resistance of Ahmed as he first broke the serve to take 5-4 lead and then managed to hold onto his serve to take the set 6-4, thus winning the final in almost one hour. 

In the ladies singles final, it was once again fight for the crown between the two old woes as both Sara and Sarah had clashed each other in countless finals in the past too. As per expectations, it was highly close and keenly-contested final between the two evenly matched opponents.

Sara after surviving some anxious moment managed to break 10th serve of Sarah to take first set 6-4. But after losing first set, former 7-time national champion came back strongly and won the second set 7-5 by breaking 12th game of Sara.

The third set was highly boring as crowd was anticipating tough fight from Sarah but she looked completely off-colour and nowhere near to what she had displayed in the first two sets. She was looking tired and hapless. Sara kept tremendous pressure on Sarah and simply outclassed her in the final set by breaking second and 4th games of Sarah to take the set 6-2, thus winning yet another title.

In the boys 16&u singles final, third seed Faizan Fayaz beat second seed Hamid Israr in another exciting three set match. Faizan lost the first set 3-6 but bounced back in style to take second set 6-3 and also won third set with same 6-3 margin to land title. In boys and girls 12&u singles final, Hamza Roman breezed past Asad in straight sets to win his second title of the event, he took the first set 4-1 and simply finished off Asad by winning the second set 4-0, without conceding a single game.

More than 200 matches were played in the event and it was the first tournament organised under flood lights on the Plexicushion synthetic tennis courts. A total of Rs 700,000 prize money was distributed among the participants in different categories of the event.

Senator Syed Dilawar Abbas, Chairman SNGPL Board of Director (BoD), who is also the Patron of PTF was the chief guest at the closing ceremony, while Pakistan Tennis Federation President Salim Saifullah Khan, members of the PTF management committee and other dignitaries were also present on the occasion.

President PTF and the chief guest distributed prizes among the finalists and lauded the efforts of the organisers (SNGPL & PTF) for holding the event in a befitting manner, they also praised the commitment of the players.