“The strategy is not working,” said Mok. “You go down to any park or public area, and you see people gathering, coaches are being innovative and conducting classes in open areas.

Omicron surge throws football season into doubt as Hong Kong extends lockdown

“Even with the two-person rule, restaurants and malls are full of people. Yet you can’t have two people on a tennis court. It seems the government strategy is to wait until everyone is vaccinated before opening up. But it’s not working. What is their end-game?”

In response, a spokesman for the Leisure and Cultural Services Department said: “Sports premises including tennis courts managed by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department must be closed up to February 23, 2022 in order to comply with the Regulation.

“To avoid further worsening of the epidemic, the government needs to adopt the most stringent social distancing measures to reduce people flow. The government will pay close attention to the latest developments of the pandemic, as well as the requirement for scheduled premises as stipulated in the regulation, and review and revise the closure arrangement in due course.”

Hong Kong has imposed a number of lockdowns since the Covid-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020. The fifth and latest surge in Covid-19 cases, fuelled by the highly contagious Omicron variant, has seen a record number of cases.

Mok said there were about 1,000 professional coaches in Hong Kong, as well as those who were not registered with the HKTA. He said many were struggling to make ends meet or had taken up other jobs. He said the HKTA has been reaching out to the government for the past two years but have yet to have serious discussions on how to manage the industry during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The government hopes for 90 per cent of the Hong Kong population to be fully vaccinated before opening up. At the moment, around 80 per cent of Hongkongers have taken the jabs.

Former Davis Cup tennis player Andy Brothers, who has been a vocal activists for tennis stakeholders since the lockdowns began, said tens of thousands of people in the sports and fitness industries are being affected.

“In the fitness and sports community, it’s incredibly disappointing that the government has chosen yet again to use a sledgehammer and blanket close all sports and fitness activities, especially outdoor, for such a long period, lumping it in with catering and indoor businesses, without any thought as to the actual risks of individual activities,” said Brothers.

“They have had two years now to look at it carefully and come up with a more measured response, but failed miserably. Last year fitness centres and sports facilities were told to get all their staff vaccinated, install air filtration equipment at considerable cost, encourage patrons to be vaccinated, all so that future lockdowns would not be needed. But yet again it has been classic misrepresentation.

“Instead of first banning the unvaccinated from using fitness and sports facilities, they have now banned everyone by shutting down the entire industry. The sports and fitness industry employs tens of thousands, who are now all out of work again.”

Each lockdown has been accompanied by financial subsidies, though it has largely been token and insufficient to maintain a living. On January 17, the Leisure and Culture Services Department said coaches registered to national associations are eligible for a one-off grant of HK$5,000.

“The coaches who are not registered with the association are not even eligible for this,” said Mok.

Brothers said the majority who are vaccinated were suffering for the sins of a minority who refused to get jabbed. “If they are waiting for 90 per cent vaccination, then don’t penalise the vaccinated while leaving the unvaccinated able to access everything,” said Brothers.

“It seems that there is simply no end in sight, and sports and fitness will continue to pay the very high price. There are a lot of desperate people here.

“Not just people in the industry, but normal folks who have no way to maintain physical and mental health when every outdoor exercise area is closed.”

The Covid-19 pandemic has also forced the cancellation of the WTA’s Prudential Hong Kong Open international tennis tournament, which was also held in 2018 and was abandoned in 2019 because of anti-government protests.

However, last year, the WTA pulled all their tournaments out of China and Hong Kong because of the Peng Shuai controversy, in which the Chinese tennis player allegedly accused a senior government official of sexual assault.