THE Philippine Tennis Association is in a quandary over its second-round Davis Cup tie in the Asia-Oceania Zone Group II against Pakistan scheduled to be played in Lahore from July 10 to 12 over whether or not to request that it be played in a neutral venue.

The Philta board, under its president Lito Villanueva, will meet on Wednesday to discuss what course of action to take considering the recent daytime terrorist attack in Pakistan on the Sri Lanka cricket team, resulting in the death of eight individuals of mostly police security men, and injuries to several players.

Earlier, the first-round tie between Pakistan and Oman was shifted from Lahore to Muscat, Oman by the Davis Cup Committee.

Pakistan won the tie handily, 4-1, behind their star player Aisam Quereshi, who is ranked no. 298 in the world in singles and no. 99 in doubles.

The Philippines, banking on the heroics of no. 1 Cecil Mamiit, turned back the spirited challenge of Hong Kong, China to also win the tie by an identical 4-1 score.

The touchy dimension to the Philippine situation is that two of the star players on the RP team ?Cecil Mamiit and Treat Huey are both US-educated Fil-Americans.

In switching the venue of the tie, Paul Smith, executive director of the Davis Cup Committee, informed Pakistan Tennis Federation president Dilawart Abbas about the decision.

?In the light of recent terrorist activities in your country, the ITF has completed a full examination of the current situation and has taken advice from many sources including our external security consultancy, which has done comprehensive security risk analysis of holding the tie in Pakistan. This report was the basis of an in-depth discussion of the situation by the Davis Cup Committee at their meeting in Mar del Plata,? at which a decision was reached not to play in Pakistan.

As expected, Pakistan reacted sharply to the decision with Abbas stating it was unfair to take the tie away from Pakistan. Ronnie Nathanielsz