David Hall rings up 700th Hong Kong win as Ka Ying Attack spearheads Sha Tin double

Basketball fans draped in the red of Houston and blue of Dallas flooded into The Venetian Macau on Friday ahead of the first of this year’s NBA China Games. The exhibition between the Rockets and Mavericks forms the centrepiece of a five-day basketball festival that tipped off on Wednesday and will conclude with a second match between the two on Sunday. Crowds gathered hours in advance of the opening tip-off, and lengthy queues snaked past the prominent NBA House entrance archway along the...

Home-grown hero Zheng Qinwen pulled out some of her best tennis to beat Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina 6-3, 7-6 at the China Open on Friday and storm into the semi-finals. Zheng, a wild-card entry in Beijing, finally notched her first straight-sets win of this year’s tournament, having needed more than 10 hours on court to get to the quarter-final. The world No 54 sent the crowd roaring as she punched winners down the line, though the seventh-ranked Svitolina came back fighting to force a second-set...

Chinese basketball fans wanting to catch a glimpse of Yang Hansen in a Portland Trail Blazers uniform might get their wish next year, with the centre’s side reportedly one of the two teams tipped to play in the 2027 NBA China Games in Macau. The Trail Blazers, who opened their pre-season with a 123-118 win over the Golden State Warriors on Thursday, have Chinese centre Yang, all-star point guard Damian Lillard, and former rookie of the year Ja Morant on their roster. A well-placed source told...

Mercedes driver George Russell said he will need to throw everything he can at stopping, or even just delaying, Kimi Antonelli’s march to the Formula 1 title – but that will not be easy from the back of the grid at the Singapore Grand Prix. Russell, who won last year’s race in ‌Singapore, ⁠was fastest in ⁠the only practice session on Friday. With the Marina Bay Street Circuit hosting a ⁠sprint this year on Saturday, drivers had just one practice session available – albeit in ‌the daylight – to...

Japan’s top volleyball competition will stage regular-season matches overseas for the first time this weekend, in a strategic push to transform itself into an Asian league. The SV League will host women’s matches on Saturday and Sunday in Bangkok, and plans to take men’s games there in January. Launched in October 2024 as the successor to the former V League, the revamped professional competition features 10 men’s teams and 14 women’s teams competing in a regular-season and playoff...

Coleman Wong Chak-lam’s historic men’s singles gold at the Asian Games had an impact far beyond earning him a spot at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics; it also secured tennis’ elite status in Hong Kong for another four years. Wong beat Wu Yibing of China in straight sets in the final at the Higashiyama Park Tennis Centre in Nagoya, becoming his city’s first singles winner at the continental Games. Bronze for Eudice Chong and Cody Wong Hong-yi in the women’s doubles made it the most successful Games...

Chinese table tennis authorities have called in police and announced plans for venue blacklists as they crack down on extreme fan behaviour, after men’s head coach Wang Hao was swarmed and verbally abused by a crowd of extreme fans at the WTT China Smash. The crackdown coincides with mounting public scrutiny over team management and athlete overwork, after world No 1 Sun Yingsha suffered a shock early exit while competing with a fever on Wednesday night. The off-court turmoil unfolded on Tuesday...

Tennis star Coleman Wong Chak-lam said he longed for nothing more than some decent rest at home and eating with friends after he returned to Hong Kong from a hectic two weeks involving three different cities. Off the back of a quarter-final appearance at the Hangzhou Open, Wong won five matches on the trot to win Asian Games gold in Nagoya, before breaking into the Shanghai Masters main draw following back-to-back wins in the qualifiers. Following his loss to Quentin Halys of France in straight...

Motorsport’s governing body said transboundary haze from Indonesian fires, which pushed air pollution in Singapore into unhealthy levels on Thursday, did not “represent a threat” to this weekend’s Formula 1 race in the city state. Singapore’s air quality again crossed the threshold, making it one of the most polluted cities globally, according to the Swiss-based air monitor IQAir. “Air quality levels are being monitored by the relevant local authorities, and appropriate contingency measures are...

It’s still early days in the 2026-27 season, but the start to the new campaign from a trainers’ perspective has been all about a trio of locals as the spotlight shifts to some different names. Through nine meetings, Manfred Man Ka-leung sits atop the championship standings on 10 wins, with Pierre Ng Pang-chi next best on nine and Cody Mo Wai-kit on eight. Each of them has been at the top of the table after bursting out of the gates to start the term. Man, 69, is almost a quarter of the way to...

The LPGA Tour’s 2027 schedule features 33 tournaments, a record US$147 million in prize money and an itinerary that does not have players bouncing across the country. LPGA Commissioner Craig Kessler released the plan for next season on Wednesday and emphasised routing, quality of courses and prize money, and the schedule has ticked several of those boxes. Hong Kong appears on the calendar for the first time in 50 years, with the Futu Ladies World Championship in the first week of March ending a...

No offence to Kyrie Irving’s Dallas Mavericks teammates or, for that matter, the Houston Rockets, but there is no question who will get the loudest cheers on Friday and Sunday in the NBA China Games. Nor is there any doubt which player will attract the most cameras and reporter questions during Thursday’s Mavericks-Rockets Media Day, which is projected to be covered by more than 400 journalists, most of them from China and other Asian countries. China’s love fest with Mavericks star guard...