ITF

My region – South, Southeast and East Asia – is a real mix. To best illustrate this, the mega nations of China, India and Indonesia are three of the four most populated countries in the world. Indeed, China and India alone account for nearly 37% of the world's total population. Then there are a host of nations such as Maldives, Timor-Leste and Macao which are tiny in comparison and at a completely different level in terms of their tennis development than the likes of China and India. However, that is not to say the smaller nations do not hold their own in terms of administrative competency and progressive leadership within their national associations because they most certainly do. That said, when picturing the South, Southeast and East Asia region, massive and tiny is an accurate depiction of nation sizes and that is always something to bear in mind when considering the relative strength of the game of tennis here. DEVELOPMENT ITF World Winter 2022/23 33 I have been the ITF's Development Officer for this region since January 2018, having previously been the Director of Player Development at the Hong Kong Tennis Association and the national coach for the Brunei and UAE tennis associations. I have loved every minute. A consistent hurdle to overcome, however, is communication, with few of the ITF member nations within my region having English as their official language. Despite this, significant progress has been made in recent times. During the past five years, in close collaboration with the Asian Tennis Federation (ATF), the ITF has managed to promote and develop tennis throughout South, Southeast and East Asia, with an increased number of nations welcomed to the ITF family. There are currently 22 ITF members nations within my region. I am now going to guide you through some of these to provide a snapshot of the tennis development and participation picture within the region. I hope you enjoy. During 2023, the ITF will press ahead with its mission to develop and promote tennis in every corner of the world. The ITF is committed to broadening opportunity, supporting talent and working towards an ambitious target of 120 million people – approximately 30 million more – playing tennis globally by 2030. There are many strands to this top-line target, all of which are contextualised through the prism of the 2021-2024 ITF Development Strategy pillars of participation, education, administration and resources, events, facilities and performance. There is much hard work taking place to ensure the game of tennis grows. As the year unfolds, ITFWorld and itftennis.com will circumnavigate the globe and report on what is happening throughout the various regions. In the latest in this regional spotlight series, ITFWorld catches up with Jonathan Stubbs, the ITF's Development Officer for South, Southeast and East Asia, as he provides an overview of his region before acting as our guide as we traverse a vast and varied continent.

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