{"id":9830,"date":"2025-06-07T21:04:04","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T21:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=9830"},"modified":"2025-06-07T21:04:04","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T21:04:04","slug":"pak-india-doubles-pair-light-up-itf-event-in-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=9830","title":{"rendered":"Pak-India doubles pair light up ITF event in Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The International Tennis Federation World Tennis Tours Junior does not get much attention but the event in Abuja, Nigeria attracted global recognition with the girls doubles event featuring a pair from Pakistan and India, Telecomasia.net learnt on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The teenage girls partnered in the doubles event with the ITF projecting it as \u201csports unite nation\u201d theme amidst the recent tension between the South Asian neighbours.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The two countries have fought three wars since independence from the British rule in 1947, with bilateral sporting ties on a halt.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Only a few and far between sporting encounters happen between the two countries, with cricket the most hit sport.<\/p>\n<p>Amidst the tension, the latest tennis partnership of the two girls reminds of the Rohan Bopanna men\u2019s doubles partnership with Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan for several years, with the pair known as the IndoPak Express.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They were runners-up at the 2010 US Open Doubles event.<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan\u2019s Soha Ali and India\u2019s Sidhak Kaur, secured their spot in the girls\u2019 doubles semifinal after a 6-3, 6-5 victory over Nigerian pair of Fego Aiyetoma and Tolu Vyashi in straight sets, winning with a score of 6-3, 6-4.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The victory got wide coverage in Nigeria and Pakistan with media outlets vying for interviews.<br \/>\nOn Thursday night, the Indo-Pak pairing lost to Goodnews Aina and Success Ogunjobi of Nigeria by a score line of 2-6, 2-6 in the semi finals, ending their chance of a title finish.<\/p>\n<p>Aisam showed happiness at the Indo-Pak partnership. \u201cAs a player and President of Pakistan Tennis Federation, I really felt great that our Soha partnered with Sidhak in the ITF event,&#8221; Aisam told www.telecomasia.net.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have always said that sports should be kept apart from political barriers. Sports unite people and that\u2019s the beauty of it.&#8221;<br \/>\n\u201cI have partnered with Rohan and other Indian players and got huge respect and friendship, because our culture is the same. I truly believe sports is a platform to achieve better relations.\u201d<br \/>\nKaur is said to be the grand niece of gold winning Olympian Surinder Singh Sodhi who played a phenomenal role in India clinching Field Hockey Gold at the Moscow Olympics in 1980.<\/p>\n<p>The ITF allows players to choose their partners after a discussion before the event.<br \/>\nBoth the players did not speak to the media over fears of a backlash in their respective countries.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The International Tennis Federation World Tennis Tours Junior does not get much attention but the event in Abuja, Nigeria attracted global recognition with the girls doubles event featuring a pair from Pakistan and India, Telecomasia.net learnt on Friday. The teenage girls partnered in the doubles event with the ITF projecting it as \u201csports unite nation\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9830\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}