Four players represent Iraq in Davis Cup

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Four players will represent Iraq in Davis Cup, scheduled in Bangladesh in mid April, according to secretary general of the Iraqi Tennis Federation. “The federation selected four players to take part in the tournament, which will be held in Bangladesh on April 11-17,” Majed Khalil told IraqiNews.com news agency. “The players are Akram Mutapha Abdulkarim, Ali Khayri Hashem, Ahmad Hamza Abdulhassan and Maab Abdulrazeq Yassin,” he explained. The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men’s tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested between teams of players from competing countries in a knock-out format. The competition began in 1900 as a challenge between Britain and the United States. The idea of Davis Cup was conceived a year earlier by four members of the Harvard University tennis team, who wished to set up a match between USA and Great Britain. Once the two respective national associations had agreed, one of the four players, Dwight Davis, designed a tournament format and ordered a trophy, buying it with his own money. The tournament was originally known as the International Lawn Tennis Challenge, but soon became known as Davis Cup after Dwight Davis’s trophy, which was designed by William Durgin and crafted by Rowland Rhodes.   SH (TS)/SR 1009