NEW DELHI: An Indian Davis Cup team is set to travel to Pakistan after 55 years, with All India Tennis Association indicating that the Central government will allow the team to travel to the “enemy country” to compete in the tie scheduled to be held in Karachi in September.
No Indian Davis Cup squad has travelled to Pakistan since March 1964 and in that tie, held in Lahore, India had won 4-0.
“We have written to the government and hopefully we will go to Pakistan, that’s the impression we have,” AITA secretary general Hironmoy Chatterjee told PTI on Wednesday.
“It’s not a bilateral series, it’s (like) a World Cup, so the government will allow. I am confident we will go and play in Pakistan. We will announce it in a day or two. Pakistan Federation has mentioned that the tie will be played in Islamabad.”
The winner of the Asia/Oceania Group I tie will move to the World Group Qualifiers.
The Pakistan Tennis Federation announced the clash in a press release on Wednesday.
The tie will be played on a grass-court at the Pakistan Sports Complex in Karachi, the PTF announced.
This is will be the first time after 13 years that the two Asian arch-rivals, whose cricketing encounters draw millions of viewers, will face each other on a tennis court.
The last time Pakistan and India played each other was in April 2006, when Mumbai played host and the home team won the fixture 3-2.
Current non-playing captain Mahesh Bhupathi was part of that team, which also had legendary Leander Paes, Prakash Amritraj and Rohan Bopanna.
Before that, India and Pakistan played at a neutral venue in Malaysia in 1973.
Pakistan until last year was forced to host its Davis Cup ties at neutral venues as teams refused to travel to the country because of security concerns.
But the scenario changed when Pakistan hosted Uzbekistan, Korea and Thailand in their previous ties.
