Eighteen-year-old Coleman Wong will lead a young Hong Kong, China contingent in an away tie against Venezuela in the World Group II Play-offs.  It will be take place on outdoor hardcourts at the Centro Nacional de Tenis in Puerto Cabello from February 3-4. The winning nation will progress to the 2023 World Group II in September, while the losing nation will have to contend with regional Group III events later in the year.

Team Nominations

2022

It began in March with a potentially tricky World Group II Play-off tie against Benin away.  With conditions unstable and the prospect of a partisan home crowd, Coleman Wong and Jack Wong did well to secure both opening singles before battling their opponents point for point late in the third set of the crucial doubles to clinch an unassailable 3-0 lead with a hard-fought 6-2, 1-6, 6-4 win.

Then, in the World Group II 1st Round last September in Taipei City, although Hong Kong, China was defeated by Chinese Taipei 3-1, Coleman Wong, fresh from a boys’ singles semifinal showing at the US Open, gave the team an eye-opening 1-0 lead after he saved a match point to win the first singles rubber, 1-6, 6-4, 7-6(8), against an experienced campaigner in Jason Jung.  Despite sitting at a more modest ATP No. 449 that week, his ranking was still some 583 spots higher than Wong’s at the time, and with four Challenger titles to his name, he was nonetheless favoured to win that encounter.  In his career, Jung was an All-American at the University of Michigan, a World University Games singles gold medalist, and reached a career-high ATP No. 112 in 2018.  He has also beaten the likes of Alexander Bublik, Kevin Anderson, Frances Tiafoe, Cameron Norrie, and Reilly Opelka on tour, to name a few.

Venezuela, meanwhile, beat Panama, Guatemala, and Puerto Rico in Pool A at the Americas Group III event in Costa Rica last June.  Although they lost 2-0 to Paraguay in the play-off, their second place finish was enough to earn them a promotion to World Group II in 2023.

Hong Kong, China roster profile

Coleman Wong backed up that win against Jung with some encouraging results in US$25,000 events on the pro circuit, claiming a doubles title and reaching the semifinals in singles three times.  He ended the year ranked No. 749 in singles and No. 630 in doubles after having peaked at No. 11 on the junior world rankings.  He ended 2022 by competing at the Bank of Communications Hong Kong International Tennis Challenge, an exhibition event featuring a number of top 20 players.  Against world No. 14 Cam Norrie, the teenager was able to produce timely first serves and groundstroke winners to keep the score close when the British No. 1 was threatening to run away with it.   In his second match against Stan Wawrinka, who was coming back after surgery, Wong made it a dogfight by trading blow for blow with him before the former three-time Grand Slam winner saved three match points in the third to prevail, 4-6, 6-3, [13-11]. Though not in peak form, there was still a huge ranking discrepancy between Wawrinka’s No. 148 and Wong’s No. 742, but he was able to rely on his strong serving and shot-making ability to make it a contest.

The teenager made his Davis Cup debut back in September 2019 at age 15 years and 100 days (a HK record), when visitors Chinese Taipei won the Group II opening round tie 4-0 at Victoria Park.   Wong was beaten by Jung in the opening singles, 6-1, 6-2, when his opponent was then ranked No. 132.   In all, the 18-year-old has played 6 ties over 3 years, going 5-2 in singles and 2-2 in doubles. At present, he is Hong Kong’s highest-ranked player at No. 741 in singles and No. 660 in doubles.  He has competed in three ITF Pro Circuit events over the past three weeks in Manacor, Spain.

Jack Wong has competed in every tie since making his Davis Cup debut in 2015, except for the one against Poland in 2020, when he picked up a last minute ankle injury.  In all, he has played 15 ties in 7 years, going 7-5 in singles and 6-1 in doubles.   He has a current ATP Ranking of No. 1251 in singles and No. 1095 in doubles.  Over his career, he has reached the men’s singles final of a Futures event twice, finishing runner-up at the US$15,000 Indonesia F1 in 2016 and the US$25,000 Hong Kong F1 in 2018. In men’s doubles, he captured the M15 Antalya title in 2019 and was a runner-up on six other occasions on the pro circuit.  In terms of local majors, the 25-year-old has captured the men’s singles title at the Hong Kong National Tennis Championships three times (2017, 2018, 2022), SCAA Open five times (2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022), and the CRC Open four times (2015, 2016, 2021, 2022).  He competed in back-to-back M15 tournaments in Jakarta over the past fortnight to get some match play in before traveling to Venezuela.

Twenty-one-year-old Roger Ng was Hong Kong’s top junior after reaching career-high junior world rankings of No. 92 in the world in 2018 and No. 60 in 2019. He was also a runner-up in men’s singles at the Hong Kong National Tennis Championships in 2018.  Injuries, in addition to the pandemic, however, has delayed his re-engagement in pro circuit events until 2022.  He has a current ATP Ranking of No. 2283 in singles.

With Coleman Wong having graduated to the pro circuit, 17-year-old Dasson Chan is currently Hong Kong’s top junior with a world ranking of No. 174.  Last year, he won three boys’ singles and five doubles titles on the ITF Junior Circuit.  At the Hong Kong National Junior Tennis Championships, he won the 16 & Under title in 2020 and finished runner-up in the 18 & Under the following year.

Venezuelan roster profile

Ricardo Rodriguez, who turns 30 this April, is the most experienced Davis Cup player on this Venezuelan team.  He has played 21 ties over 9 years and amassed a win-loss record of 25-10 in singles and 1-2 in doubles.  The 25 singles wins is the most by a Venezuelan in Davis Cup history.  After leading his nation to a victory over El Salvador in the 2013 Group II final, Venezuela was promoted to Group I.  Following relegation the following year, Rodriguez led his team to three successive Group II finals from 2015-2017.   In his pro career, he has won eleven singles and nine doubles Futures titles.   He was ranked as high as No. 282 (9 Jun 2014) in singles and No. 521 in doubles (6 Jan 2020).  However, he had not won a singles title since 2019.  At present, he is ranked No. 835 in singles and No. 684 in doubles.  As a junior, he achieved a career-high ranking of No. 14 in 2011.

Brandon Perez, age 23 and a lefty standing at 6-foot-3, made his Davis Cup debut in 2018 for Venezuela and has played 7 ties in 3 years, going 0-4 in singles and 2-1 in doubles thus far.  At the Americas Group III event last year, Perez was nominated to play doubles only for the first three Pool matches and went 2-1. He has a current ranking of No. 1624 in singles and No. 840 in doubles. In his career, he has captured two M15 doubles titles at Guatemala and Cochabamba in 2021.  His career-high is No. 1624 in singles and No. 727 in doubles (26 Sep 2022).  He played his freshman and sophomore seasons of college tennis at Virginia Tech where he earned an NCAA men’s doubles ranking of No. 46.  He is currently a senior playing at Old Dominion.

Rafael Abdul Salam, 21, was nominated for Davis Cup duty for the first time in 2022 and he was the preferred choice to start at No. 2 singles behind Rodriguez.  He eventually went 3-1 in singles play.  After a junior career that saw him reach No. 182 in the world, he started playing college tennis at the University of New Mexico in 2019.  For his career, he has competed in four M15 ITF Pro Circuit events.  He successfully qualified for Santo Domingo in 2021 and was given a maindraw wildcard for Albuquerque in 2022.

Francisco Sinopoli, age 18, reached a career-high junior world ranking of No. 187 (28 Mar 2022).  Last June, he made his Davis Cup debut for Venezuela at the Americas Group III event, going 1-1 in doubles play.  However, he has yet to play a match on the pro circuit and is therefore unranked in both singles and doubles at present.  He joined the James Madison University men’s tennis team in January this year at the start of the dual-match season.

Tie Preview Notes

On Friday (Feb 3), the home nation’s No. 1 player will face-off with the away nation’s No. 2 player and vice versa. On Saturday (Feb 4), the doubles match will take place first,  followed by the reverse singles, i.e. home nation’s No. 1 versus away nation’s No. 1, then home nation’s No. 2 against the away nation’s No. 2. All live rubbers are best-of-3 tiebreak sets.

PAST CHAMPIONS

In total, sixteen nations have won the Davis Cup since its beginning in 1900:

• USA: 32
• Australia: 28
• France, Great Britain: 10
• Sweden: 7
• Spain: 6
• Czech Republic, Germany, Russian Tennis Federation: 3
• Croatia: 2
• Argentina, Canada, Italy, Serbia, South Africa, Switzerland: 1

Japan (1921) and India (1966, 1974, and 1987) are the only nations from Asia to reach the final in Davis Cup history.