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Page 443 of 485
Page 443 of 485
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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
ADDRESS BY CHAIRMAN
CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese):—Ladies and Gentlemen, may I call the meeting to order.
1. CONFIRMATION OF THE MINUTES OF MEETING HELD ON 13 FEBRUARY 1996
The minutes held on 13 February were confirmed.
II. PAPERS LAID
The following paper was laid—Report to the Urban Council by the Secretary, Urban Council for the month of February 1996.
III. QUESTIONS
(1) MR. ERIC WONG CHUNG-KI asked the following question (in Cantonese):—At present, the venues for holding international tennis tournaments usually have a grass surface or red soil surface (commonly known as clay surface), or hard surface, but the tennis courts built by the Urban Council all have a hard surface. As tennis is becoming increasingly popular in Hong Kong and local players are beginning to participate in international tournaments to compete with other professional players, will the Urban Council consider converting some of the existing hard surface tennis courts to grass or clay surface courts, or building new tennis courts with such surface so that tennis enthusiasts and Hong Kong players in international tournaments can practise in courts with different kinds of surface? If the answer is affirmative, what are the detailed plans by the Urban Council? If the answer is negative, what are the reasons for not building courts made of such materials?
Ms. GRACE AU YUK-HAR, VICE-CHAIRMAN OF THE RECREATION SELECT COMMITTEE, replied as follows (in Cantonese):—Mr. Eric WONG Chung-ki's question asks whether the Council has plans to convert some tennis courts into grass or clay surface courts to facilitate practice by tennis players.
The Urban Council now manages 128 tennis courts. The majority of them are hard courts having a tarmac base and sealed with a coloured acrylic surface which meets standards set by the Lawn Tennis Association. This type of surface is widely used internationally and is accepted for major tournaments such as US Open and Australian Open.
Grass courts are classified into two categories, i.e. natural and artificial grass. Natural grass courts require intensive maintenance, cannot stand heavy use and cannot be used during wet weather. Therefore, grass surface is not suitable for Urban Council courts where demand is generally very high. Furthermore, important tournaments played on grass courts are relatively few except the Wimbledon in UK.