Hooking up Rendy Lu Yen-Hsun with AirAsia

When AirAsia first announced its plan to fly to Tashkent in 2009, the first thing that came into mind was to get Asia's no.1 player Rendy Lu Yen-Hsun sponsored by the budget airline.

Esther, my regular contributor/PR woman, and I had this crazy idea: to ask AirAsia's CEO Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes for sponsorship.

Our reasons are quite simple.

The Taiwanese player is the only Asian player in the ATP top 100 (now ranked at no. 62) and he had won the Tashkent Challenger tournament last year. With more sponsorship, Rendy is able to go further up the ranking and improve in his tennis career.

And most importantly, Mr Fernandes himself loves tennis. He even involved in the CEO-Celebrity Tennis tournament last year.

So, Esther and I got the nod from Rendy's manager/brother to approach Tony and we even drafted a proposal seeking potential partnership between AirAsia and Rendy Lu.

Then surprisingly, another opportunity came by recently when AirAsia announced that they will launch its inaugural flight between Taipei and Kuala Lumpur on July 1.

We're hoping that Rendy will be chosen as an ambassador for AirAsia in Taiwan just like what he did for the recent Rafael Nadal's Lanvin perfume launch.

Tony has replied to our email saying that he will look into our proposal which has already arrived a couple of days ago via courier from Taiwan.

Hopefully we'll get some good news after this.

Chinese language ATP website launched

According to the statistics by China Tennis Association (CTA), the number of people playing tennis in China has risen to 8.12 million since '04.

To capitalise on the growing number of tennis fans in China, and the fact that China has the largest and fastest growing number of internet users in the world, ATP launched its Chinese language web site yesterday.

CEO of the ATP International Group, Brad Drewett believed there is no other perfect time than now to launch the all new Chinese language ATP World Tour website www.ATPWorldTour.com.cn and reach out to wider audience.

Personally, I don't really like the font type and font colour used in the website. Too painful for my eyes. I still prefer to get my dose of tennis info from Sina.

(Via ATP website)

Kei Nishikori heads back to court; finally gets to swing his racquet

Kei Nishikori is finally back on court training, with a racquet in his hands.

Looks like the Japanese tennis star is practising on red clay court preparing himself for the clay court season.

If everything goes well, he could start playing in Belgrade!

There is another great news about Kei.

He is featured on the cover of the Japanese version of EA Sports Grand Slam Tennis alongside John McEnroe and Rafael Nadal!

(Images via nickstennispicks.com, keinishikori.com)

Rome Masters: Man of the moment

Rafael Nadal arrived in Rome fresh from winning his fifth straight Barcelona Open title.

There closeup photos were taken at the press conference during day one of the Foro Italico Tennis Masters.

Everyone will be asking the same question, will he dominate here too?


(Images by Julian Finney/Getty Images)