Hong Kong coaches bemoan blanket sport restrictions – ‘how is tennis not social distancing?’

Tennis coaches around the city have endured massive pay cuts for months with no end in sight

Coaches wonder why an outdoor sport like tennis cannot be played safely within government social- distancing regulations

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Hong Kong tennis coaches Jason Sankey, Gary Yam and Andrew Town said they are feeling the strain. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Published: 4:02pm, 28 Jan 2021Updated: 4:02pm, 28 Jan 2021

Hong Kong tennis coach Gary Yam Chung-ming said he has taken a drastic pay cut since the government started shutting down courts last year to fight the pandemic.

“It’s been hard for us,” said Yam, who has been teaching for nearly nine years. “There hasn’t been much financial help from the government either. So we’ve had to get creative. Before I was working about 20 plus hours a week, and now it’s about two, so it’s 10 per cent of what it was.”

Hong Kong has about 200 public courts across the city, with about 100 more private venues, which have been shut down three times for more than 140 days since April. According to Tennis Asia, one of the city’s biggest private academies, there are at least 27,000 regular players.

Coaches like Yam have been given little help from the government, a HK$7,500 one-off subsidy, which some coaches said they were not eligible for in the first place because of strict requirements for the funding. Hong Kong is enduring an extended fourth wave, with the government now locking down neighbourhoods trying to stop the disease spreading.

Police shut down a gathering of tennis players at Tamar Park who are unhappy the sport is still banned under social-distancing regulations. Photo: Felix Wong

Tennis Asia managing director Jason Sankey, who is also a coach, said there is a much bigger problem lurking, on top of coaches bleeding out financially and going into debt. He said the next generation needs to be exercising for their future.