The Hong Kong Tennis Open 2025

The HK Tennis Open at Victoria Park is the final tournament in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) season. The Hong Kong event was awarded  “WTA International Tournament of the Year” twice in 2018 and 2024.

The first day of the main draw competition, “People’s Monday”, with free admission for all, was not the anticipated unseemly scrum and several matches were successfully concluded without the need for riot police intervention.

^{Centre Court}

Spectators could either take their seats in the splendid arena of Centre Court or the two outside courts or lounge lazily in deck chairs facing a massive screen showing full coverage of the action by Now TV.

^{It was all too much for some…}

Tennis in China has a long history because, of course, like golf, hockey and football, it was invented in the country long, long ago. Yes, tennis is believed to have been invented by Chinese monks in the Middle Ages, who played a precursor to the game called 手掌遊戲 Shǒuzhǎng yóuxì (“game of the palm”). They hit a ball across a fishing net with their hands in monastery cloisters. The game quickly spread to nearby nunneries and thence to the courts of the Emperor:The game evolved over centuries, with players first wearing leather gloves for protection before a paddle was developed, and eventually a racket in the 16th century. The game’s popularity grew, spreading from the monasteries to the nobility and royalty, eventually becoming known as Real Tennis in Europe.

^{Chinese Ladies playing Tennis in The Forbidden City}

Strangely, tennis did not spread far in ancient China, being restricted to the ruling classes. So it was the idle British who brought the modern game to Shanghai and Hong Kong in the 19th Century.

^{Lady tennis players – courtesy of Wikipedia}

The Hong Kong Tennis Open for ladies has been running since 1980. The tournament had several interruptions, and returned in 2014 as a WTA 250 tournament called the Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open.

And very well run indeed it is with hordes of friendly young Hong Kong volunteers eager to assist stumbling spectators, some stumbling through general decrepitude, others through the effects of too much Stella.

The tournament included many internationally well known lady combatants, but several fell by the wayside through injury, probably caused by the draining effects of an overlong season.

Hong Kong was ably represented by:

and

Both ladies played well in both singles and doubles and they received tremendous support from the partisan crowd but ultimately to no avail. Sunday’s Final saw a new singles champion victorious; the aptly named:

^{Congratulations to Victoria, from Canada}

Other tournaments around the world have interruptions to matches caused by slithering snakes, perambulating possums, buzzing bees and suicidal seagulls etc. but Hong Kong is far more genteel.

In the evening twilight and approaching dusk, singing starlings disport themselves in the surrounding trees and white, ghost-like cockatiels wheel and dive above the stadium in low-level formation.

Whether or not the cockatiels indulge in actually relieving themselves on the spectators is a mute point but my Sai Kung companion, a slightly less elderly but no less clumsy gent, managed to lightly sprinkle some beer over the heads of the spectators in front of us. Until he apologised, they were looking skywards accusingly at the swooping cockatiels.

Your Roving Reporter managed to secure accreditation for this year’s event. He quickly discovered the Media Centre where he was surprised and delighted to find an excellent free buffet and coffee but – no beer! He supposed it was wise of the organisers not to provide alcohol – the prospect of numerous inebriated photographers and reporters stumbling around the tournament harassing players no doubt terrified them.

He discovered that beer was however on sale in the spectator zone:

^{Pulling a pint for our Roving Reporter}

^{Pickleball staff needing a break}