Hong Kong's U20 men's tennis squad settled for a bronze medal at the 15th National Games after a 0-2 semifinal defeat to top-seeded Jiangsu, which also marked the city's first-ever semifinal appearance in the group event.
Under the best-of-three format—two singles matches followed by doubles—the Hong Kong team opened with Jack Cheng taking on Jiangsu's Chris Xu.
The debutant struggled in his straight-sets loss of 1-6, 0-6, putting the visitors immediately on the back foot.
In the second singles, Nicholas Cheng stepped up against Hu Jia, dropping the opener 3-6 before rallying to even the score at 6-3.
Momentum faltered in the decider, however, as he fell 4-6 to hand Jiangsu the match victory and eliminate Hong Kong's hopes of gold.
With no bronze-medal match, the Hong Kong representatives secured a bronze medal, the first-ever tennis medal in the history of the National Games.
With this achievement, Hong Kong's competitors have now tallied two golds and one bronze across the Games' events so far.
