Ode Editors | Sept/Oct_2009 issue
Their home countries may be enemies, but at Wimbledon in June, tennis players Prakash Amritraj, from India, and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi, from Pakistan, showed they could come together not just to compete for the men’s doubles title but to promote tolerance. “It’s fantastic to show that Indian and Pakistani players can fight a common cause, regardless of race, creed or color,” says Amritraj, whose father, Vijay, was one of India’s most popular tennis players. “The world would be better off if more people adopted this kind of thinking.”
In 2002, Pakistani tennis federation representatives protested loudly when Qureshi announced he was partnering with Amir Hadad of Israel at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open that year. This time, though, the federation was silent. Still, tennis rather than politics was Amritraj and Qureshi’s priority. “We’re just very good friends,” Amritraj says. “He’s a Muslim and I’m a Catholic, but we realize that we have the same faith in God. We think alike on many subjects, and we have a great chemistry on the court.” Amritraj, ranked 154th on the Association of Tennis Professionals list, and Qureshi, ranked 278th, didn’t quite make it to the Wimbledon quarter-finals. Amritraj, for one, was surprised that so many people praised their play as a model for their governments. “I guess there’s so much negativity in the world,” he says, “that a positive message can go a long way.”
