VietNamNet Bridge – Top female Vietnamese tennis player Nguyen Thuy Dung, 24, plans to open a tennis academy in Ha Noi in the near future.


Rare breed: Hanoian tennis player Nguyen Thuy Dung plans to open a tennis academy in Ha Noi in the future. (Photo: VNS)
"I'm planning to set up an academy in Ha Noi in the next few years. However, my family and I are still looking for partners to make the dream a reality," she said.


Elite Vietnamese tennis players often seek training courses at famous tennis academies abroad, where they find favourable conditions to bring them to the professional level, she added. They have to go abroad because Viet Nam has not made sufficient investment in the sport.


The Hanoian has studied tennis for years in the US and Thailand to hone her skills at a cost of around US$90,000 a year. She believes her experiences will help her manage an academy in Viet Nam.


However, tennis courts are being developed quickly in Viet Nam, from small towns to big cities.


There are currently about 500 amateur tennis courts in Ha Noi and 1,000 in HCM City. Most professionals in Ha Noi play at the Khuc Hao Sports Centre, while their counterparts in HCM City have three or four options.


Aside from finding a suitable court to train on, professional tennis coaches in Viet Nam are a rare breed. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has been offering refresher courses for Viet Nam's coaching staff for the past 10 years to fix the problem.


National Sports College in Tu Son Town, Bac Ninh Province, recently began offering tennis coaching courses but most of the students are former badminton coaches.


Experts agree that tennis needs time to reach a professional status like football and volleyball.


Successes


Dung started training for tennis at the age of 14 and has enjoyed success over the past decade.


In 2001, she won her first title at the national Junior Championship before winning a bronze medal in the women's team event at the Southeast Asian Games in 2003.


She added a doubles title and a second finish in the singles at the ITF's Juniors Circuit tournament Viet Nam in 2004.

In 2008, Dung became the first Vietnamese female player to reach the semi-finals of a professional tournament – the ITF Women's Circuit held in Thailand.


Last year, she won the women's singles title at the Roy Emerson Adoption Guild Tennis Classic in California.


It was the first United States Tennis Association title won by a Vietnamese woman.


The Hanoian, who is 1.67m tall and weighs 55kg, ranks 612th in the ITF junior rankings, but her goal is to make it to the world's top 500, which would allow her to enter bigger tournaments.


VietNamNet/Viet Nam News