Some of the best women's volleyball players will be in HK from July 16 to 18, for the preliminary rounds of the FIVB Women's World Grand Prix. Timothy Chui reports.

The tournament at the 12,500 seat Hong Kong Coliseum will bring together two of the world's top three women's volleyball teams, top ranked US and number three ranked Chinese national team, along with teams from Thailand and Japan.

The raw recruits from the national team from last year are better seasoned, with Yuan Xinyue and Zhu Ting expected to turn in a remarkable showing

The tournament has deep roots in Hong Kong. The final matches of the first Grand Prix were held in Hong Kong back in 1993. Although the event is "international" in scope its sponsorship comes primarily from Asia.

The Chinese National Team is expected to attract strong support from local fans, in a city where women's volleyball has a large following, much greater than in the West, says Hong Kong Boys Youth Volleyball team coach Zimon Chan Chun-kit.

Chan contends that women's volleyball is a much more engaging sport from the fans' perspective with longer, more nail biting volleys. The women's teams are the fan favorites in Thailand and Japan.

It probably doesn't hurt the women's volleyball that photographs of the angelic teen player from Kazakhstan, Sabina Altynbekova, created a sensation all across the Internet. Altynbekova's name is probably more familiar to people in Hong Kong than the names of Hong Kong's women's captain Lam Yee-ting, or teammate Tsui Ka-yee. Most people already have forgotten that the Hong Kong ladies came agonizingly close to winning a bronze at the last Asian Games, finishing fourth.

While the national women's team has long been a regular fixture near the top of international rankings and Hong Kong's making serious strides, the sport's visibility locally remains far behind its antithetical athletic cousin: soccer.

Soccer enjoys lucrative sponsorships, generous government subsidies and legions of loyal fans, while volleyball, the brainchild of an American YMCA physical education director, doesn't come close to commanding the same attention.

Hong Kong Boys Youth Volleyball team coach Chan said volleyball's exclusion from the government's list of supported sports presented a chicken and the egg conundrum from getting more support at professional levels.

At the 2014 Asian Games, the Hong Kong Women's volleyball team was short of winning a medal at the international competition, a prerequisite for receiving government grants and elite training at the Hong Kong Sports Institute.

Until then Hong Kong's volleyball teams will lack dedicated training facilities. That means they will have to compete with members of the general public for booking courts online through the Leisure and Cultural Services Department. Teams are able to practice only two or three times a week, Chan said.

"The Hong Kong Sports Institute offers access to facilities, nutritionists and other expert athletic support but you need to win a medal at a major world championship," he said.

Despite a perceived lack of support for professional volleyball, Hong Kong has no shortage of amateur games, largely coordinated through the Volleyball Association of Hong Kong, which has about 3,700 registered volleyball players covering all skill levels as well as a Meetup.com pick up volleyball group.

There is plenty of pent-up demand for pick up volleyball according to Guillaume Leprieur, whose Meetup.com group has grown to over 2,600 members in less than three years - large enough that the community of expats and locals has seen two weddings, at least.

"We're now in a situation where we can't book enough courts to satisfy demand of our 2,600 plus members, competing fiercely with other sports when booking indoor venues online," he said.

Contact the writer at tim@chinadailyhk.com

Kazakhstan teen player Sabina Altynbekova (in white jersey) with HK Young Women's Volleyball Team in Tsing Yi Long Green Coliseum, December 2014. Roy Liu / China Daily

A match between teams from the Chinese mainland and Italy at the Hong Kong Coliseum during the FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix 2014. provided to China Daily

(HK Edition 07/10/2015 page10)