Lee is head and shoulders above his opponents
Avid footballer is the first Hong Kong champion in new sport after MacPherson Stadium triumph
Hong Kong crowned its first teqball champion after a tightly contested Hong Kong Challenge Cup final in Mong Kok.
Watched by coaches, Lee Ming-fai confirmed he is a front runner for a place in Hong Kong’s inaugural representative team after a straight sets men’s singles final win against Wong Chun-kit
on Sunday night. Lee also earned a return ticket to Budapest, Hungary – the birthplace of teqball and first played in 2014 – for an elite training experience.
The sport has been given the go-ahead to debut at the postponed Asian Beach Games in Sanya in 2022, with whispers of it featuring at other continentalwide tournaments.
“For sure, but we need to practise our skills a lot more because I know international level teqball is very competitive,” said Lee, an avid footballer, of his interest in representing Hong Kong. Though Lee dominated the final, his route through the preliminary rounds was much tougher.
He was tested by Tsang Siuhong in a best-of-three semi-final, with Tsang ultimately winning the third-place play-off at MacPherson Stadium.
Lee, who in recent weeks upped his juggling and technical training for the event, made the argument for why teqball – a combination of football, table tennis and tennis – is the perfect sport for notoriously population-dense Hong Kong.
“Teqball as a new sport is a great fit because the tables are not very large. Hong Kong’s space is limited and everyone is looking to touch the ball. In a normal [11-aside] football] game, people touch the ball a lot less, but in one hour of teqball, players can touch the ball up to 100 times. It’s very good for practising skills and control,” he said.
“Practice [is the secret]. Although I don’t have a teqball table, I normally play it on the streets or in limited spaces. Teqball gives each player a lot more touches and, surprisingly, the exercise aspect is even more demanding than running around on a pitch because you always have to be on the move.
“Your hand-eye coordination, concentration, and familiarity with the ball also has to be really good.”
Finalist Wong partnered Mok Chung-pan to make a spectacular comeback to win the mixed doubles final against Yeung Ching-hei and Leung Chuk-hei.