Opinion | Foot fault for Hong Kong tennis
Internal row threatens to overshadow all the hard work done to qualify again for elite status with the Sports Institute
Trouble is brewing in the courts of the Hong Kong Tennis Association. At first glance it seems to be a battle between forces of the past and the future.
A pity, especially with the sport now on the cusp of getting back into the Hong Kong Sports Institute and receiving millions of dollars of support from the government annually.
Local tennis got a shot in the arm when top women's player Zhang Ling reached the singles finals at the Asian Championships last week.
Kwok and Tsui are champions of a time when the game was more laid back and played in an atmosphere of tea and crumpets
That effort was enough to win the sport the last few valuable points it needed to reach a benchmark set by the elite academy.
Together with points won in the junior category by Katherine Ip Cheng, the association has collected the required amount to become an elite sport from 2015.
But an internal struggle threatens to rip the association apart. Two former presidents, Philip Kwok Chi-kuen and Kenneth Tsui Kam-cheung, who between them ran the association for 28 years, are up in arms at a proposal by the present executive council - to be discussed at a meeting on Tuesday - to change the constitution to allow people with financial interests in the tennis business to join the council.
In an open letter, the pair said: "If the special resolutions of this EGM [extraordinary general meeting] are passed, the HKTA may be exposed to the danger of being controlled by persons with financial interests in tennis."
It is understood they are referring to Herbert Chow Siu-lung and Andy Brothers. Chow is the managing director of Chickeeduck, a garment company while Brothers owns a business providing coaching services to tennis clubs.