Guillermo Coria retires; HCFoo is heartbroken...

After considering stepping down from tennis for months, Guillermo Coria announced his retirement from the professional tennis circuit at age 27 today.

“I didn’t feel like competing anymore,” Coria said in statements published on the Argentine Tennis Association’s website.

“I’ve made the decision I will not play again.”

“In 2005 I began to feel less and less like competing,” he said.

“My passion just wasn’t the same and it’s impossible to do things well when it’s like that. In this sport, you have to be at 100 percent,” added Coria, who is currently ranked 672.

“I’m very happy with the decision I’ve taken, since I have new projects and I will be able to spend more time with my family,” Coria said.

I'm not sure about you but it's heartbreaking for me to see him chosen this time of the year, during the Rome Masters tournament to announce his retirement.

I remembered so well the year 2005, when Coria gave such a remarkable and memorable performance at the Rome Masters final against Rafael Nadal. I sat through the entire match for an incredible 5 hours and 14 minutes! Nadal won the match 6–4, 3–6, 6–3, 4–6, 7–6(6) in the end.

Coria is also a finalist for Roland Garros in 2004 and formerly ranked third in the world.

Now leave you guys with my favourite match ever.

(Via AP)

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)