Hong Kong’s tennis players told to get fitter and compete in more tournaments
The more you compete the better you will become, says Michael Cheng, who says local stars play far fewer games than the leading players
The chief of Hong Kong tennis has said the city’s leading players need to get fitter and compete in more tournaments.
Michael Cheng Ming-git, president of the Hong Kong, China Tennis Association, also said the city had to work on both the environment of the sport as well as the coaching aspects to take the sport to a higher level.
“The more you compete the better you will become – we are talking about 80 to 100 matches [a year], we are talking about overseas training and competition exposure,” he said. “[The players] need a much better fitness programme and must work on their serve and returns, too.
“There is only so much you can learn on the technical side – you basically need to play a lot of matches, and you need to play from a very young age, to learn to win. You don’t learn tactics by doing hand-feed drills only.”
With only one quarter of the calendar year left, Eudice Chong and Cody Wong Hong-yi, the two local players with the highest WTA rankings, have played 40 and 51 singles matches, respectively, to date this year.
Coleman Wong Chak-lam, who is now on a career-high ATP ranking of 128, has 64 singles matches to his name in 2024.
