The All Nepal Lawn Tennis Association (ANLTA) is organising the South Asia Regional Qualifying for the ITF Asian 12 & Under Team Championships on May 15-20 at Satdobato Tennis Complex in Lalitpur. 

The seven-nation tournament, launched jointly by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and Asian Tennis Federation for the first time, will send the top two nations—girls and boys—into the ITF Asian U-12 Team Championships to be held in Kazakhstan in December. The regional event will include 10 countries in boys’ and eight in girls’ categories. 

“We had organised the Asian Ranking U-14 and ITF Junior Grade-5 tennis tournaments in the recent past. Now, to come up with a tournament which has been launched for the first time by the regional and world governing bodies is a huge achievement for us,” said ANLTA President Jyoti Rana during a press conference on Thursday. 

Along with hosts Nepal, the tournament will be participated in by India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Maldives. 

Each nation will field girls’ and boys’ teams comprising of three players. 

The event will include two singles and one doubles events with and will be played under best of three format, informed the organisers.

ITF will be providing ANLTA with an assistance of $18,000 and an additional $250 for covering the expense of each participant to host the event. “We would require approximately Rs 2.6 million to organise the tournament and we think the assistance amount will be inadequate for us. We might have to look for sponsors,” said Manohar Das Mool, the ANLTA General Secretary. 

Aarav Samrat Hada, Aaryan Giri and Aki Juben Raut form the Nepali boys team coached by Krishna Raj Ghale, while the girls’ team includes Isha Shree Shah, Sarvani Shrestha and Suvangi Laxmi Shaha with Sriram Magar as the coach. The players were picked up for the event following a selection tournament few days earlier.