Wimbledon 2010: Aisam-ul-Haq and Rohan Bopanna in Round 3
Men's doubles tennis stars Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi have started a peace initiative to help end the distrust between India and Pakistan. The players come from perennial enemies; Rohan hails from India while Aisam is from Pakistan. Interestingly, the two tennis stars work very well as a team and are also very good friends. They used their appearance at Wimbledon 2010 to showcase their campaign of peace and tolerance.
Rohan and Aisam teamed up three years ago but have been friends for the last ten years. They started to play tennis at the professional level and together, they form a formidable doubles team. They came up with the idea to use tennis to bring about a peaceful solution to Indo-Pak problems when they witnessed Pakistani flags in a Mumbai stadium cheering for the duo. The idea was that if fans from both sides of the border could support a team from India and Pakistan, then they might be able to use it as a gesture to show the leaders of their nations that they can end the hostility and find peace in the region.
The two players, along with their sponsor Lotto and the Peace and Sport Association decided to come up with the slogan 'Stop War, Start Tennis'. They have scripted their t-shirts with the slogan which they wear during training sessions and on the backs of their sweat shirts which they wear before starting play. It is a great fact that they got their sponsors to go along with this plan because usually companies tend to stay out of political issues and do not want to be seen as taking sides. It is great that a company has shown courage in order to help promote peace in the subcontinent.
India and Pakistan have been having issues and been fighting against each other since their independence from British rule and partition from each other in 1947. The two tennis stars have showed the world that it only takes a small effort to convey a gigantic message across the world. The two players did not even think about the issue of them playing tennis together when they started at the international level. However, as time went on and they noticed fans from both countries supported the combination, they got the idea for this venture. They are using the influential stage of Wimbledon 2010 to promote their message. On another positive not, the pair has made it to the third round in the men's doubles event. The two have also been named Champions of Peace for their work in trying to bridge the gap and promote peace between India and Pakistan. They both see this unique pairing as a chance for them to get people in both their countries interested about peace with each other.
They are being supported in their campaign by the Peace and Sports organisation of Monaco. It is a neutral organisation that is trying to encourage peace through sports all over the world. People forget their differences and their hostilities and come together as one when they are watching and playing sports. Racism is forgotten, barriers are broken down and people reach higher levels of understanding about one another. The organisation uses sports to promote peace, because sports transcends differences between people by bringing together communities and forces people to mingle and integrate when they play a game. This organisation feels that if more enemies can come together to play a simple game of sports, they will find that their differences are essentially non-existent and they will see each other as the same as opposed to being different.
These two tennis players should be applauded for the courageous and noble stand that they have taken in trying to promote peace and eradicate differences between their countries. If more athletes can come together like this and play together, the world would become a much more peaceful and war free place to live in for everyone. Now all we need is an Israeli and Palestinian duo playing a sport together.
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