Coleman Wong

After picking up a racquet when he was just five years old, Coleman Wong has developed into one of the best tennis players Hong Kong has ever produced. By seven or eight, he was winning local tournaments; at 14, by which time he was studying at the Diocesan Boys’ School, he won the Orange Bowl International Tennis Championship, a feat achieved by some of the sport’s all-time greats, such as Andre Agassi, Boris Becker, Roger Federer, Steffi Graf and Justine Henin.

More recently Wong was accepted by the Rafael Nadal Tennis Academy in Spain, where he had the opportunity to trade shots with his personal hero. “It’s amazing playing with a legend,” he says. “And he’s my idol for sure. I feel honoured and grateful, and he gave me a lot of advice.” But what’s it like to train at the top level? “I wake up around 7am and play tennis from 8am until 10.45,” he says. “At 11, I go to the gym until around 1pm, then rest up and have lunch. At 3.30, a second hitting session until 6. Then recover, an ice bath or physio, and that’s my day, six days a week.”

With a training regimen as intense as his, it’s no wonder Wong’s been breaking records left and right. As the highest-ranked player in Hong Kong’s history, the 19-year-old won two junior doubles Grand Slams consecutively at the US Open 2021 and Australian Open 2022. After reaching the boys’ singles semi-finals of the 2022 US Open – the furthest any male tennis player from Hong Kong has gone – he went on to win his first adult professional title in Tunisia.

“I enjoy tennis and I try to be the best player I can be,” Wong says. “I love to put in the work and I hope to become the first player from Hong Kong to win a Grand Slam – or even be number one in the world.”