Gul Hamid, a tennis star who now lives with his second wife in a remote village near Wah Cantt, now sells his trophies to survive. Gul Hamid’s first wife and children live in Karachi, whom he has to feed too.
The 68-year-old tennis star who has been playing tennis for the last 50 years won three International Tennis Federation cups, which include an ITF hat-trick from 2008 to 2010, the 1986 Oman Open and three gold medals from Pakistan Navy, where he served as a petty officer.
He told Geo TV;
“I took my cups to sell to Arif Sahib, at Pakistan Sports Board, as I had no choice.”
“I prefer death over insults at the hands of a landlord who knocks at my door asking for rent, which I have been managing through thick and thin until now,” he says.
“It was really an amazing day of my life when I beat Krishna Bhopatti of India in the Oman Open in 1986. It was a big victory amidst an international crowd of fifteen thousand,” he adds.
According to the tennis star, Bhopatti, whose son Mahesh Bhopatti is currently an international tennis star even asked him to travel to India and train tennis players there.
“I thanked Bhopatti for the offer and told him I need to train our children in Pakistan,” he says.
“I am 68 now, and it’s probably the time for me and my wife to sit on Mussala (praying mat) and not running around for a living,” he adds.
Gul Hamid said he told Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa and Prime Minister Imran Khan, to fix a reasonable monthly stipend for him or give him at least some low-grade job like a groundsman. He also recounted his golden days through plastic coated newspaper clippings and commendations spread on a charpoyee.
