The double-leg Bangladesh-Malaysia Friendship Tennis Tournament will begin today at the National Tennis Complex at 10am.

Bangladesh Tennis Federation (BTF) and Uttara Club Limited are jointly hosting the tournament sponsored by  Bangladesh Commerce Bank Limited.

The BTF will host the first-leg competition today. Top four players of Bangladesh – Amol Roy, Ranjan Ram, Dipu Lal and Mohammad Akhter Hossain Rana will represent the country. Md Mozahidul Haque will act as coach. Malaysia has sent four players to Dhaka who are  yet to represent their national team in the Davis Cup. Malaysia are playing in Group-3, while Bangladesh are the bottom tier of Davis Cup. The Malaysian team has already arrived in the capital on Wednesday morning. The four Malaysian players are: Muhammad Aiman Bin Hamdan, Talhah Bin Mohammad Rahizam, Naufal Siddiq Bin Kamruzzaman and  Azrul Ekhsain Bin Azman. Muliyadi Bin Jamal is accompanying the team as coach.

The double-leg tournament will be played on David Cup format with two singles and one doubles match.

An official of BTF said that this type of exhibition tennis tournament will definitely help Bangladesh players to enhance their tennis skills playing with better opponents.

The second-leg tie will be held at Uttara Club tennis court tomorrow. Uttara Club will also take the visiting Malaysian team to a school in Uttara to hold a tennis workshop. The club is organising the tournament to encourage the club members’ children to come forward play tennis.

BTF vice president and tournament director ASN Haider stated this at a press conference

yesterday.  RQM Forkan, managing director of Bangladesh Commerce Bank and Salim Shahed, member in charge of Uttara Club were also present.