Cash kicks off HK's 'Box League'

Staff Reporter

Former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash last night served up a curtain-raiser to a 'revolution' that will be launched in Hong Kong next month.

Cash beat Hong Kong number one Yu Hiu-tung 8-5 in a pro-set clash at the Chinese Recreation Club as a prelude to the Box League Tennis Series (BLTS) - a time flexible, venue flexible, round-robin singles competition for the recreational player.

Mark Kratzmann, the Hong Kong-based former junior Wimbledon champion, is launching the Hong Kong version of BLTS on January 21. 'It is great to have him [Cash] kick off what will be the biggest development of tennis in Hong Kong history,' said Kratzmann.

BLTS, or flexi-tennis, has more than 45,000 participants in the US and has rapidly become the world's most popular format for competitive tennis. Harnessing the power of the internet, BLTS has developed a time and venue flexible competition tailored to fit the schedules of the recreational player.

'Hong Kong has to be the world's busiest city so it needs a flexible competition format to allow players to compete effectively and improve their skills,' Kratzmann said. 'These are boom times for tennis in Hong Kong and we are seeing record numbers of new players entering the sport. Box League Tennis Series encourages players of all ages, sizes and abilities to compete against players of similar ability to test their skills.

'The greatest asset of this competition is that as participants improve they move up the BLTS rankings to compete against better players, therefore again making further improvement.'

Kratzmann said the response in testing BLTS had been 'stunning'.

'It's clear that players have been looking for a way to experience challenging singles competition,' he said. 'We will see thousands of games played with the hard launch of the series. That can only be good, not just for the sport but for the overall health and well-being of the community.'

Growth game

The number of people in the US who compete in the Box League: 45,000