The match with the team of Kyrgyzstan will begin the performance of the national team of Turkmenistan at the Central Asian tennis championship among children under 12 years old, which will be held from 5th to 9th of June in Ashgabat. These are the results of the drawing of lots held today in the tennis complex of the Olympic Village, following which all pairs of participants in the first game day were determined.
The tournament has not started yet, but it has already gone down in history by bringing together representatives of all six countries of the region - Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for the second time in its decent history.
«Only Turkmenistan can bring together all the participating teams», Amir Borgei, the responsible curator of the Asian region at the International Tennis Federation (ITF), welcomed tennis players from Afghanistan who arrived in Ashgabat for the second time taking part in the Central Asian Championship (U-12) at the meeting. .
This was the case in 2019, when the tournament was first held in Ashgabat. And now the Afghan team is again among the participants in the Central Asian Championship.
The Afghan sports delegation brought only a team of boys to the capital of Turkmenistan, as a result of which it was decided to hold a round-robin tournament.
During the draw, the participants of the current championship of Central Asia were seeded according to the results of the previous tournament, which was held during the pandemic in 2022 in Tashkent without the participation of the Turkmenistan team. As a result, our team was seeded fourth. The first three places went to the teams of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, respectively, and the last two - to tennis players from Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
On the 5th of June, at 9.00 am, the grand opening of the tournament will begin in the tennis complex of the Olympic Village, after which, at 10:00 am, the teams of the boys of Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan will enter the centre court, and the teams of the girls of these countries will compete on the first court.
Teams of boys from Kazakhstan and Afghanistan will meet on other courts, and representatives of Uzbekistan will play against opponents from Tajikistan.
Today, on the eve of the start of the tournament, in the tennis complex of the Olympic Village, the representative of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Amir Borgei and the chief referee of the Central Asian championship Seftejani Mohammadhassan Lachinani (Iran) held a referee seminar, which was attended by 14 national referees from all velayats of the country.
Correspondent «GA»