Indo-Pak express roots for a tennis match across Wagah border

Melbourne: The Indo-Pak pair of Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi urged their respective governments to allow a tennis match across the Wagah border crossing.

Both Bopanna and Qureshi said the initiative was now backed by the world tennis body -- International Tennis Federation -- and an international peace group -- Peace and Sport -- a non-governmental organisation run by Prince Albert of Monaco. The duo hoped that the match, a part of their "Stop War Start Tennis" campaign, would play a positive role in bringing the two divided countries together. "A lot of good things have been achieved, the ITF is now supporting this, Peace and Sport is also supporting this," Qureshi said. "The letters have gone to the prime minister and president of both countries. It is a political issue and there are a lot of security concerns, so we are just hoping that the governments will give us the green light so we can play that match on the border."Both Bopanna and Qureshi are hoping for a positive response, with the Pakistani saying that things are going in the right direction. "Last year, at the US Open, both the UN Ambassadors for Pakistan and India came and watched our matches, which was a huge thing and they are supporting the cause as well.”"Things are going in the right direction, we just have to keep playing our matches and get more and more publicity on the bigger occasions. Hopefully it will happen this year." PTI