> To Articles Home Page
> Wimbledon Pictures

There is something rather wonderful about the professional tennis circuit. It is a United Nations, a melting pot of cultures. Politics and religion and other divisions between countries are all but forgotten and ignored.

One example concerns Aisam-Ul-Hag Qureshi of Pakistan. He’s a muslim, but it didn’t prevent him playing doubles with Israel’s Amir Hadad back in 2003. He has also often partnered various players from India, and the atmosphere between those two countries isn’t exactly a bed of roses.

This year he worked his way through the qualifying and reached the second round, where he lost in three decent sets to Marat Safin. He is the most successful player ever from his country, but it’s not a huge surprise because tennis is in his genes.

“My mother was national champion for 10 years in Pakistan, and my grandfather, he was Indian number one before the partition, when India and Pakistan used to be the same country,” he reveals.

“Out of all my brothers and sisters I was the most sporty one. When I was younger I always used to play all the sports, so I was master of none. But when I was 14 years old my mother just took me to the tennis club and we used to play. It was summer holidays, and I had an excuse to run away from my homework. I just started when I was 14. I never thought I would be a professional tennis player when I started. It was just a hobby in a way.

“I used to go for an hour, two hours, and then when I was 16 I got into the ITF team that sponsored me for two years, and that changed all my life. I got to number seven in juniors, and then my father started taking a lot of interest and my coach, also. They're like, ‘You should give it a shot’.”

His success at Wimbledon was something he was determined to achieve, and it was on his mind every day this year.
“In January I started writing every day that I want to qualify for Wimbledon, and I'm very happy that I've been able to do that this year and win a round, and my next goal is to get in the top 100 this year. I believe I can do this. I actually got the idea from Martina Navratilova the year she won her last Wimbledon. Martina used to write it every day that she was going to win Wimbledon. Mine was I was going to qualify for Wimbledon, so it's a little bit different.”

Another player to break the barriers is Sania Mirza, another muslim, who is playing doubles with Israel’s Shahar Peer. She’s very defensive about it, not surprising when all kinds of threats have been made against her concerning the way she dresses on and off the court.

“We've grown up together,” she said. “We're great friends. So we said, why not? I think we were both very lucky to find each other because it's someone who suits each other's game. I have a big forehand, she has a big backhand. We've done well in the past.

“We're playing tennis, we're not making statements. We're just here to play tennis and we're here to perform and be the best we can be. I mean, everything we do or everything we say, we're normal human beings, and we're not here to make statements with every move that we make.

“Me and Shahar are playing just like the way me and Birnerova played the French Open, just like the way I played with anyone else the last six weeks. It doesn't make any statement. We really don't care whether she's from Israel or I'm from Pakistan. At the end of the day it matters whether we win a match or not.”

Meanwhile, Roger Federer has been talking about how he would like to improve his game. Really.

“I would like to come to the net much more often,” he said. “That would be my ideal style of play. Serve and volley maybe a hundred percent of the first serves and once in a while on the second serve just to keep mixing it up.

“Like this, you'd have so many -- maybe more, you know, like points sometimes you can't control but you react to them, because at the net you'll always have a lot of passing shots, volley winners. Sometimes that's really exciting. I wish I could play much more this way. (But) If I would, I don't think I would win that many matches. That's why I prefer to stay back.”

Come on, Roger. Experiment. Throw caution to the wind. Give everyone else a chance!

Yesterday we discussed red knickers. Today, it’s white shorts. Venus wore them as she beat Miss H. Stromova (CZE). But, unusually for a Williams sister, it wasn’t a fashion statement. It was just her skirt was too big. It’s not that she’s suddenly lost weight, she says. They just seem to have come in the wrong size.