Sports
Western Michigan won the men’s hockey natty! Now what?
KALAMAZOO, Mich. — In February 2022, Dan Bartholomae, the newly appointed athletic director at Western Michigan, held his first all-staff meeting.
After weeks of learning about the university and its athletics profile, Bartholomae delivered a message for anyone willing to hear it: Think big.
“We are going to win conference championships, we’re going to put ourselves in a position to win national championships,” Bartholomae said that day. “But we all have to believe we can do it, and we ought to agree that that’s important. If you agree and you’re willing to do the work, you belong in this room. If not, like, that’s cool, you don’t have to stick around.”
Bartholomae’s directive sounded like what many new ADs would tell their staff. But those words needed to be said, and ultimately believed, at Western Michigan, which hadn’t won any Division I national championships since men’s cross country went back-to-back in 1964 and 1965.
Shortly after the meeting, hockey coach Pat Ferschweiler went to Bartholomae with his own message: What you’re saying is true. Keep saying it. When Ferschweiler played for WMU in the early 1990s, he thought the team could win a national title. But there was always hesitancy around campus.
“For too long, we’ve been shy about saying we want to be great, in case we’re not great,” Ferschweiler said “We second-tiered ourselves as a university. That’s not the case anymore.”
The Western Michigan men’s hockey team was top tier last season — actually, in a tier of its own. National champions. The regional school in southwest Michigan won it all. On Thursday night, a championship banner will be revealed at Lawson Arena as WMU opens the season against Ferris State.
Men’s hockey is distinct in that teams from a range of schools can contend for the sport’s top prize. From 2001 to 2010, seven titles went to teams from schools that have Power 4 football. From 2013 to 2024, all but one championship went to a school without a team in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Title winners included Denver, Providence and Quinnipiac, which don’t have football teams at all and can sink resources into hockey. Other winners included North Dakota, which plays in the Football Championship Subdivision, and Minnesota-Duluth, which plays Division II football.
Then, in April, Western Michigan captured its first championship. WMU plays football in the Mid-American Conference, a proud but financially challenged FBS league, and hockey in the NCHC, which Ferschweiler calls “the SEC of hockey” because of its surge in national titles, winning seven of the last nine NCAA tournaments.
“There’s nothing more exciting than a national championship for a regional university like us,” WMU president Russ Kalvahuna said. “The story of a regional university is always thinking you might have a chance, but learning you don’t. And that’s what this team completely demolished for all of us.”
Bartholomae views Western Michigan’s championship as distinct, even from those won by others in the NCHC, where only one other member, Miami (Ohio), plays FBS football. When he attends athletic director meetings in the MAC, he can sense the other two longstanding members of the league that have hockey teams, Miami and Bowling Green, “looking to replicate our success.” (UMass, which just joined the MAC this season, plays in Hockey East, winning the national title in 2021.)
But Western Michigan also faces the pressure of: What’s next? After surging to the summit of the sport, how does WMU stay there? The plan involves the people and homegrown ingredients that fueled the program’s rise and a massive facilities project designed to put WMU on or near the top rung for good.
LAWSON ARENA OPENED in 1974 and looks its age, from the earth-tones exterior and low ceiling to the cramped concourse and cinderblock hallways. There are markings of WMU’s national championship both inside and outside, but the building oozes history, including the faded photos of past teams and individual standouts. The late ESPN host and play-by-play broadcaster John Saunders played at Lawson, as did his brother, Bernie, a WMU Ring of Honor member who logged 10 games for the NHL’s Quebec Nordiques.
The arena has a seating capacity of just 3,667, nearly half of which is assigned to the Lawson Lunatics, WMU’s student section, which uplifts the Broncos and torments visitors, especially the unfortunate souls sent to the penalty box right in front of them.
“Insane,” star goaltender Hampton Slukynsky said of playing in Lawson.
“Crazy, in the best way possible,” said forward Owen Michaels, WMU’s captain.
“The coolest thing ever,” added defenseman Cole Crusberg-Roseen.
After a recent practice at Lawson, Ferschweiler walked into the team’s cozy meeting room and sat down with a Diet Mountain Dew. Ferschweiler is the face of WMU hockey, a former player who returned as coach and accomplished the unthinkable at his alma mater.
But when WMU recruited him out of Rochester, Minnesota, he didn’t know much.
“That was pre-internet, so we had to pull out the old paper maps and figure out where it was,” Ferschweiler said. “Since I stepped foot on campus, I fell in love. The cool thing about Western to me has always been, it’s big enough to offer everything, but small enough where you still feel valued as an individual.”
Ferschweiler won MVP honors for the Broncos in the 1992-93 season and played for teams that had winning records but never advanced to the NCAA tournament, which had only 12 participants at the time. He teamed with Keith Jones, who went on to NHL prominence, and now serves as president of hockey operations for the Philadelphia Flyers. WMU had only one NCAA tournament appearance and three regular-season or conference tournament titles before Fershweiler returned to the school for the first of two stints as a Broncos assistant in 2010, but he had greater aspirations even going back to his playing days.
“I just thought this is a world-class place, and it’s a hidden gem,” he said. “We have tons to offer here.”
Arguably WMU hockey’s greatest asset is Lawson, an arena that reflects the program’s soul. Last year’s Broncos won a team-record 16 games there, with their only two losses coming in overtime. WMU is 52-23-2 at Lawson during the past five seasons.
“I love Lawson Arena, and our players love playing in Lawson Arena,” Ferschweiler said. “On Friday and Saturday nights, it’s as special an environment as there is in college hockey.”
The problem with Lawson, for a program aspiring to be elite, are the other days of the week.
“On a Monday and Tuesday when most of the recruits come through, it’s a 51-year-old building,” Fershweiler said. “It’d be nice to have a prettier wrapping, which we’re certainly going to have in our new building.”
In the fall of 2027, Western Michigan is set to open the Kalamazoo Event Center, a $515 million project that will be the new home for Broncos hockey, WMU’s men’s and women’s basketball programs, and the Kalamazoo Wings, a minor league affiliate of the Vancouver Canucks. The downtown facility, not far from WMU’s campus, was in the works before the hockey team’s national title and had its groundbreaking ceremony last month.
WMU soon will move from a charming but aging barn to possibly the best facility in college hockey. There are other, more immediate changes too, as WMU begins its penultimate season at Lawson.
“Pat and I laugh about this: It was cheaper to go to our hockey games than it was to go to a movie in 2022,” Bartholomae said. “We had to put together a ticket model that actually made us competitive. We hadn’t set up the infrastructure to be big time.”
Kalvahuna took over as president in July but needed no introduction to Lawson. He saw his first game there at 7, sitting next to his father, Eduardo, an immigrant from Brazil who knew little about hockey but sought an outlet away from the house during wintertime. Russ Kalvahuna later watched games from the stands as a WMU student and absorbed Lawson’s intimacy and energy.
“We held off the price inflation for as long as we could, but we’re proud of the fact that you can come to Kalamazoo, like my dad and I did, but unlike us, you can see national talent in a small venue with an extraordinarily vibrant environment,” Kalvahuna said. “And we’re going to amp that up with the arena in two years.”
ON THE NIGHT of April 12, Jackson Hammerschmidt sat in Section 301 of the Enterprise Center in St. Louis, alongside two dozen others from the Lawson Lunatics. They watched WMU play Boston University — a program with five NCAA titles and 25 Frozen Four appearances — for the national championship. Hammerschmidt, president of the group, donned the cowboy hat he wears for every game at Lawson.
When Michaels scored to give WMU a 4-2 lead with 7:16 to play, Hammerschmidt and the others moved down to ice level. During WMU’s on-ice celebration, Bartholomae saw Hammerschmidt beyond the boards and tossed him an official national championship hat.
“It’s my favorite hat, and that includes my cowboy hat,” said Hammerschmidt, a senior from Wheaton, Illinois. “It made it extra special, because everyone was down there. Probably one of the greatest days of my life.”
Hammerschmidt wore the hat and a Lawson Lunatics T-shirt as he spoke in the hallway outside WMU’s dressing room, acknowledging the players and coaches as they passed by. The group became a registered student organization in 2022, the same year WMU earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and recorded its first tournament win.
They’ve been integral in the program’s rise, and part of what makes WMU different.
“I remember a lot of players giving me the trophy, [saying], ‘Man, it’s as much yours as it is ours.’ I’m like, ‘That’s where you’re wrong,'” Hammerschmidt said, smiling. “It’s been really awesome. They treat us like family.”
Hammerschmidt has regular dialogue with Bartholomae and Kalvahuna. He spoke at the groundbreaking event for the new arena and has sat in on design meetings. Bartholomae even had the architects shadow the Lunatics to understand their perspective and how they impact the game-day experience.
At the new arena, the student section will be positioned next to the players entrance and will convert from individual seats for non-WMU games to benches, which the Lunatics prefer, since they stand all game.
“I might be a bit biased, but I challenge you to find another institution that highlights a fan base like that,” Kalvalhuna said. “It’s actually a part of our team.”
The Lunatics aren’t the only ones with input in the arena project. Ferschweiler’s wish list included a performance center just for the hockey team, which currently lifts weights in a shared space at WMU’s 68-year-old basketball arena.
The coach also wanted improved nutrition and recovery spaces for the athletes — even a performance chef — and has gotten the green light for it all.
“They haven’t said no to me for three years,” he said.
The upgrades will be significant for Western Michigan hockey, which currently has a facilities setup that’s “worst in our league,” Bartholomae said. “By far.”
While MAC football programs typically don’t have super donors, WMU has Bill Johnston, chairman of the Kalamazoo-based Greenleaf Companies, who is backing the project.
“I’ve never been in a room where somebody said to me, ‘You need to tell us exactly what it is, what you want, and I need you to think as big as you possibly can, and don’t let anybody censor what you think is important for this building to be successful,'” Bartholomae said. “And then that same person is writing one check to cover it.”
The facility isn’t WMU’s only investment area. Ferschweiler, promoted to replace Andy Murray in August 2022, was initially the lowest-paid NCHC coach. After leading WMU to three consecutive NCAA tournaments and the team’s first-ever tournament win, he received a new contract in January that runs through the 2029-30 season and pays him $420,000 in base salary.
There are also the players.
“We’ll probably be the last major sport team to win a national championship with zero NIL dollars — we had zero last year — which I’m certainly proud of,” Ferschweiler said. “We certainly have some this year.”
The challenge going forward might be handling the new luxuries. Should the program that not long ago had an underpaid coach, outdated facilities and meager infrastructure worry about losing its blue-collar edge?
WMU’s CHAMPIONSHIP CELEBRATION began on the ice and continued that night in a giant ballroom at a nearby hotel, which Bartholomae rented out in anticipation of a victory. When the team returned to Kalamazoo, there was a line of limos waiting.
“We rode around town, thousands of people in the streets, just cheering us on,” Slukynsky said.
The Broncos were honored on the field at Comerica Park and Ford Field in Detroit, and at Wrigley Field in Chicago. They got the key to the city in Kalamazoo, and receive congratulations whenever they go around town in their WMU gear.
But Ferschweiler has tried to make it clear where the focus should be.
“Rip the rearview mirror off and look through the windshield,” he said. “We’re going forward at all times in this program.”
The 55-year-old is fixed on the future, even after interviewing with the Flyers for their head-coaching vacancy this spring. Bartholomae knows Western Michigan, even in its enhanced financial position, can’t compete with NHL money, and doesn’t minimize what losing Ferschweiler would mean to WMU.
What Bartholomae can offer is a partnership to try and establish Ferschweiler’s alma mater as an enduring national power.
“That interview was great for me because it validated everything we did here at the highest level,” Ferschweiler said. “I went in there and told them exactly who we are, what we are, why I believe in things for three hours, and walked out going, ‘They believe in that a little bit now, too.'”
WMU didn’t sneak up on anyone last year, as a preseason top-20 team that entered the NCAA tournament as the No. 4 overall seed following its first NCHC title. But the Broncos are the overwhelming No. 1 team in the country entering this season, as they try to become the first team to capture consecutive national titles since Minnesota-Duluth in 2019.
Although All-American Alex Bump and other heroes from the title team are gone, WMU might have an even better roster, bolstered by several returnees who could have pursued the pro route and the arrivals of four transfers or freshmen who are NHL draft picks.
“I expected guys to come in ready to work their asses off and go get it again,” Crusberg-Roseen said. “I don’t think anybody here is going to rest on their laurels.”
The Broncos are accessing higher-level recruits, but since the hockey prospect cycle goes several years out, the benefit of the championship — and the new arena — might not fully be felt for another year or two. Bartholomae expects WMU to be “a mainstay in the Frozen Four,” and a program with the results and resources that others envy, as Denver and North Dakota have been in the NCHC.
Ferschweiler is still thinking big. He will smile when the banner is unveiled at Lawson, mainly because of what it took to reach this point, but also because of where he thinks WMU is headed.
“It’s a pretty amazing thing for Western Michigan University,” he said. “But again, it’s a beginning, it’s not an ending of what we think our success is going to look like.”
Had Michigan star Yaxel Lendeborg just seen a ghost?
His Wolverines — then the No. 1 team in the country — were used to overwhelming opponents on the glass and in the paint. Instead, they had just been outrebounded and outscored by Cameron Boozer and the No. 3 Duke Blue Devils, and Lendeborg couldn’t find the words to describe the superstar freshman.
“Um … man … um,” Lendeborg hedged when asked about Boozer’s play after the Feb. 21 game, shaking his head and trailing off.
Boozer has had that mystifying effect on every opponent he has faced when the stakes are high.
Clutch performances throughout the 2025-26 campaign have made him the clear favorite for national player of the year honors in a season that features arguably the most talented freshman class of the one-and-done era, not to mention multiple returning All-Americans. The gap between the 18-year-old and the country’s other elite players was widened in the win over Michigan, thanks to his game-altering 3-pointer and the draw of a key goaltending call in the final minutes.
Lendeborg was not the first star Boozer humbled this season. He had 24 points and 23 rebounds against Tennessee’s Nate Ament in a preseason win. Projected NBA draft lottery picks Darius Acuff Jr. and Thomas Haugh could only watch in awe as Boozer scored 64 points combined in wins over Arkansas and Florida, respectively. Boozer also bulldozed Jeremy Fears Jr. and Michigan State to the tune of 18 points and 15 rebounds. Meanwhile, the ACC is still trying to catch its breath from Boozer’s spectacular efforts throughout conference play, with rival North Carolina up next in Saturday’s regular-season finale (6:30 p.m. on ESPN) — a game that could seal Duke’s bid for the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament.
“We’ve been in a lot of big-time games, a lot of close games, against a lot of highly ranked teams or talked-about teams,” Boozer said about himself and his brother Cayden, also a five-star freshman for the Blue Devils. “So I feel like just being in a lot of those moments prepares you for this.”
Those who have watched the rise of Boozer — son of Carlos Boozer, a former NBA All-Star who won a title with Duke in 2001 — would agree. There is a common thread that ties his basketball career together, from middle school to present day: He’s a defensive dilemma not only because of his size, relentless motor, intellect and a skill set that has made a him a projected top-three pick in the 2026 NBA draft, but also because of the way the game seems to slow down for him in the highest-pressure moments.
Boozer won four state titles with Columbus High School at Florida’s highest level of prep basketball. He led the Explorers to a national title in 2025. His AAU team, the Nightrydas, won three consecutive Nike EYBL crowns. He was co-MVP of last year’s McDonald’s All American game. He won Gatorade Player of the Year twice, plus two gold medals with USA Basketball. That level of dominance means the same question opponents have always asked about Boozer will take center stage in March: How do you stop him?
Kansas’ Darryn Peterson might have the highest NBA ceiling in this freshman class. And BYU’s AJ Dybantsa is its most entertaining and explosive talent. But Boozer is, well, the winningest.
Every time championships have been on the line in his career, Boozer has won. And in the clutch moments of crucial games, he has delivered.
“It’s his greatest tool. It’s his greatest asset,” Miami head coach Jai Lucas, a former Duke assistant who recruited Boozer, said. “It’s like he’s been there before, and he’s been that way since he was in seventh, eighth grade. He’s always played with an older vibe, a veteran vibe about him.
“No moment, no situation is too big for him.”
Andrew Moran’s phone buzzed the night before a regional matchup in the 2022 Florida state playoffs.
As the Columbus High School coach was preparing his squad to face its next opponent, Boozer — a team captain as just a 14-year-old freshman — had watched the film and written a scouting report. He noted the hand signals the opposing coach had used for each set.
“It had descriptions of their plays and it had the time stamps in which it happened during the game. And at first I was confused,” said Moran, who is now an assistant at Miami. “I looked at it and I was like, ‘What the hell is he sending me?’ And then I realized, ‘Oh man, this guy is sending me detailed stuff.’ So for me, I was like, ‘This is another level of preparation at this age.'”
Boozer fell in love with the game early.
There is video of a seventh-grade Boozer blocking shots into the parents section of former NBA All-Star Chris Paul’s middle school combine in 2019, dribbling behind his back and throwing full-court passes. He already had a bag of skills players his age clearly couldn’t match.
“That’s a throwback. I think I had yellow hair back then,” Boozer said, referencing the gold hairstyle he sported at the time.
When the pandemic closed schools and gyms around the country, Boozer and his buddies played pickup games every day, sometimes in the rain, often on the full court at his house. That’s when his friends noticed a shift.
Dante Allen was Boozer’s AAU teammate then. He asked his father, Malik Allen, an assistant coach for the Miami Heat, to put their pickup crew through drills before playing 5-on-5. It was already evident Boozer had the tools to be a great player, but the drills showcased how his intensity was growing.
“I think that’s definitely when he started to get a lot better as a basketball player,” Dante Allen said. “I’d say every drill, he was very intentional with it. There was no point where he was going anything less than a 100% speed with it, just trying to be the best that he can. And then once we started playing pickup, it was just carrying over everything that we’d been doing, all the lessons he’d learned.”
During his freshman year at Columbus High School, Boozer’s combination of brains and brawn thrust his team into the state championship game against Dr. Phillips High School’s roster of now-Division I players Denzel Aberdeen (Kentucky), Ernest Udeh Jr. (Miami) and Riley Kugel (UCF). Boozer scored a team-high 17 points to help Columbus High capture its first state title.
“It was the biggest matchup that we had at that point, and he was just really poised and got us to the win,” Cayden Boozer said.
The victories piled up from there as Cameron’s game evolved.
Coach Mark Griseck figured his Windermere High School team would have its hands full against Boozer and a Columbus team seeking its fourth consecutive state title last year. Early in the game, he said, Boozer set the tone.
“The first time my point guard got hit with a ball screen from Boozer, he goes, ‘Man, it took me about three or four trips back down the court to get my senses back,'” said Griseck, whose team lost 68-36. “Because Boozer set a screen on him and it almost knocked him out. And it wasn’t illegal. It was just a screen by a tree.”
The opposing players in that lopsided affair noticed not only Boozer’s skills and dominance, but also the way he orchestrated the action on the court.
“He was anchoring his offense and not only anchoring it but calling out the plays,” said TJ Drain, a Windermere alum who now plays at Liberty. “He was very vocal with his teammates in encouragement, and that really stood out to me. Whether it was a good pass or a great cut or he’d say, ‘I know you’re going to finish the next one.'”
Boozer’s family background gave him a head start in basketball. His determination did the rest. To those who have witnessed his development, his success at Duke isn’t surprising. They saw the seeds of what he blossomed into a long time ago.
“He’s getting wherever he wants to,” Allen said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a 7-foot, 300-pound player in front of him or if it’s a pesky guard in front of him, Cam is going to get wherever he wants, regardless. And I think the really hard part about that is that he can get wherever he wants to and then the fact that he’s going to make the right play.”
Exactly 32 hours before Notre Dame was set to tip off against Duke, Fighting Irish head coach Micah Shrewsberry was concerned about how his team would handle Boozer.
Those worries were justified. Notre Dame scored only 22 points in the first half. Boozer had 20 on his own. The Blue Devils went on to win 100-56.
“I’m pretty sure he and his brother were probably dominating when they were 8-year-olds, all the way through,” said Shrewsberry, who left the game in a walking boot after suffering an Achilles injury while he coached his team. “He plays as hard as anybody out there. There is no arrogance to him. It looks like winning’s really important to him, and he’s going to do whatever it takes to win.”
1:05
Cameron Boozer tallies a double-double in Duke’s win
Cameron Boozer scores 24 points and grabs 13 rebounds in Duke’s rout over Notre Dame.
Howard head coach Kenny Blakeney knows what it takes to win, too. He was on the Duke team that won its second straight national title in 1992. Having played with Christian Laettner, Grant Hill and Bobby Hurley, Blakeney also knows talent. And he realized Boozer is a lot more than that when his Bison played the Blue Devils in November, saying the “ginormous” Boozer plays like a “baby Jokic” — comparing him to three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic.
“If you watch the Duke game against us, Duke was closing out the game, running ball screens for a 6-foot-9, 250-pound dude to get downhill and make decisions,” Blakeney said. “He shoots it well. He’s an incredible passer. He can do whatever he wants to do on the low block.
“It’s like the criticism from what I hear is that he’s not bouncy enough. Well, you can’t stop the stuff that he can do, so he doesn’t need to be.”
It was only this time last year that Cooper Flagg was authoring one of the greatest freshman campaigns in the one-and-done era. And Boozer is arguably outplaying him.
Boozer is averaging more points (22.6 vs. 19.2) and rebounds (10.0 vs. 7.5) than Flagg, and nearly as many assists (4.0 vs. 4.2). Boozer is also a better 3-point shooter and is playing more minutes. His current 135.3 offensive rating would set a record in the KenPom era (since 2003-04) if it holds. And he has led Duke to its best start (28-2) since 1998-99, when that squad started 29-1 (and won 32 games in a row).
Boozer has an opportunity to end his career as one of the greatest freshmen of all time — not just at Duke. According to data scientist Evan Miya, Boozer is having the best season in college basketball since at least 2009-10, surpassing Zach Edey’s second consecutive Wooden Award season in 2023-24 (25.2 PPG, 12.2 RPG, 2.0 BPG).
“I just think he’s wired for it. He lives it,” Duke head coach Jon Scheyer said. “He’s incredibly prepared going into the games of understanding the different coverages he can see. I mean, we’ve seen so many different defenses, whether it’s doubles or single coverage or heavy plugs, whatever it is. I credit his preparation. I credit the fact that he just lives it every single day.”
At the next level, Boozer will compete against players who might have traits he lacks. He’s not an above-the-rim threat or walking “SportsCenter” highlight like Dybantsa and Peterson, who are projected to go ahead of him in the NBA draft. But Boozer is a complete player with a knack for navigating adversity to win games.
“One of his biggest intangibles is a winning pedigree. Championships, MVPs, gold medals, he’s won at every stop, at a high level, and is a primary contributor on a team that is in position to win it all in April,” one NBA executive told ESPN. “He seems to be about all the right things.
“His actions indicate that he cares about winning, playing the game the right way, handling his business with maturity and professionalism.”
On Saturday, Boozer will lead Duke into its regular-season finale against North Carolina, the ACC outright title already in hand. After that, the Blue Devils will ask him to do what he has done throughout his career: lead them to a championship — their first since 2015.
Accepting that responsibility is all Boozer knows. He always has done his best work when the stakes are highest.
“There is a lot that comes with being at Duke, but you wouldn’t come to Duke if you were afraid of that or didn’t want to be a part of that,” Boozer said. “It’s the biggest brand in college basketball. There is always a spotlight, always a target on your back, so you come to Duke to play in these moments — to be in these moments.”
ISLAMABAD: Eight Pakistani officials have been appointed to key committees of the International Tennis Federation and the Asian Tennis Federation for the 2026–2027 term, marking a significant achievement for Pakistan’s tennis community.
The appointments are being viewed as a recognition of Pakistan’s growing role in the development and governance of tennis at both regional and international levels.
Representation in ITF Committees
Pakistan’s top tennis player and President of the Pakistan Tennis Federation, Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi, has been selected as a member of the ITF Athlete Commission.
Other Pakistani officials appointed to ITF committees include:
Sara Mansoor – ITF Coaches Commission
Syed Muhammad Ali Murtaza – ITF Juniors Committee
Pakistani Officials in ATF Committees
Several Pakistani representatives have also been appointed to committees of the Asian Tennis Federation:
Salim Saifullah Khan – Finance Committee, Development Advisory Group, Legal, Constitution & Ethics Committee
Ziauddin Tufail – Junior and Coaches Development Committee
Rashid Malik – Marketing and Sponsorship Committee
Shehzad Akhtar Alvi – Tournament Officiating Committee
Sara Mansoor – ATF Advantage All Committee
Muhammad Khalid Rehmani – Senior, Wheelchair and Beach Tennis Committee
Recognition for Pakistan Tennis
Speaking on the occasion, Salim Saifullah Khan said the appointments demonstrate the trust of international tennis bodies in Pakistani officials to contribute to the global development of the sport.
PTF President Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi also described the development as a proud moment for Pakistan, saying it will strengthen the country’s role in international tennis and open new opportunities for the sport’s growth in the region.
PTF Secretary General Ziauddin Tufail congratulated the appointed officials and expressed confidence that they would represent Pakistan effectively at the international level.
AHMEDABAD: New Zealand will “not mind breaking a few hearts” in the T20 World Cup final against defending champions and hosts India, captain Mitchell Santner said on Saturday.
Santner’s side will face India on Sunday in Ahmedabad with over 100,000 home fans expected to fill the Narendra Modi Stadium.
New Zealand reached the 2021 final, losing to Australia, and has never won a white-ball World Cup.
“I wouldn’t mind winning a trophy,” Santner said.
He added: “It’s going to be obviously a challenge where everyone knows we’re probably not the favourites.
“But yeah, I wouldn’t mind breaking a few hearts to lift the trophy for once.”
New Zealand have blown hot and cold.
They hammered South Africa — unbeaten until then — by nine wickets in the semi-finals after Finn Allen blasted the fastest-ever century at the tournament.
But they also lost to South Africa and England earlier in the competition.
They face an India side on a roll with three straight wins.
In 2023, Australia, led by Pat Cummins, silenced the home crowd in Ahmedabad in the final of the ODI World Cup.
“I guess that’s the goal, is to silence the crowd,” said Santner.
“T20 cricket is fickle at times. We’ve seen South Africa playing very good cricket all the way through and then had a little hiccup against us and out.
“So I think for us, it’s taking confidence from that, and if we go about our business the same way, we can upset another big team.”
Top-ranked India are attempting to become the first team to win back-to-back T20 World Cups and the first to lift the trophy on home soil.
They would also be the first to win the title three times.
But they will have to withstand the expectations of a packed house plus hundreds of millions more watching on TV.
Santner feels that the level of expectation could weigh heavily on them.
“So I think that comes with a lot of added pressure as well,” said Santner. “So if we can go out there and try and put, I guess, that added pressure on them and see what happens.”
UAE president says country is well and ‘no easy prey’ in first public comments since Iran strikes
Go Digit General Insurance gets GST demand notice of Rs 170 cr – The Times of India
Saturday Sessions: Cory Wong performs "Roses Fade"
Attock Cement’s acquisition approved | The Express Tribune
Policy easing drives Argentina’s garment import surge in 2025
India Us Trade Deal: Fresh look at India-US trade deal? May be ‘rebalanced’ if circumstances change, says Piyush Goyal – The Times of India
-
Business1 week ago
Attock Cement’s acquisition approved | The Express Tribune
-
Fashion1 week agoPolicy easing drives Argentina’s garment import surge in 2025
-
Business1 week ago
India Us Trade Deal: Fresh look at India-US trade deal? May be ‘rebalanced’ if circumstances change, says Piyush Goyal – The Times of India
-
Sports1 week agoLPGA legend shares her feelings about US women’s Olympic wins: ‘Gets me really emotional’
-
Fashion1 week agoSouth Korea’s Misto Holdings completes planned leadership transition
-
Entertainment1 week agoBobby J. Brown, “The Wire” and “Law & Order: SUV” actor, dies of smoke inhalation after reported fire
-
Fashion1 week agoTexwin Spinning showcasing premium cotton yarn range at VIATT 2026
-
Entertainment1 week agoPakistan’s semi-final qualification scenario after England defeat New Zealand