The stars joined Olympic champion fencer Vivian Kong and Prudential executives in panel talks before demonstrating their skills on the court

The journey to the top of a profession is rarely linear. This sentiment was highlighted at an exclusive event championing the next generation of leaders, which was hosted by Prudential and featured a high-profile line-up of elite athletes sharing their personal stories.

Prudential NextGen Aces was held in mid-October ahead of the Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tournament that the insurer has sponsored for more than a decade. This conversation-driven event, which is part of the company’s wider campaign to inspire and nurture young talent in Hong Kong, underscored how performance, mindset and mentorship can help shape rising stars in the worlds of business and sport.

Prudential CEO Anil Wadhwani said in his opening speech that Prudential’s support of tennis reflects its commitment to create value for its stakeholders comprising customers, shareholders and “importantly, our communities”.

“This event is an attempt to showcase some of the world-class talent and dig deep into their experiences. Hopefully it will provide inspiration to our up-and-coming talent to perform and compete on the world stage and be the best they can and put Hong Kong’s name firmly on the map,” he said, referring to the hopeful future tennis stars in the audience.

More than 200 guests gathered to hear two discussion sessions in which Aryna Sabalenka, the current WTA world No 1 player, Andre Agassi, the former No 1 men’s player in the world, and Vivian Kong, Hong Kong’s Olympic gold medallist in fencing, joined Prudential executives on stage to share how they created environments that helped them achieve success.

Over 400 guests were also treated to a lively on-court session between Sabalenka and WTA top 50 player Anna Kalinskaya. In addition, Agassi gave the audience a demonstration of his signature power moves on the court.

Agassi and Wadhwani sat down together for a fireside chat titled “Passing the Racket: Leadership, Legacy and the Next Generation”. Agassi, who won eight grand slam titles during his 21-year professional tennis career, shared how early success led him to make some poor personal choices. But then came a period of reflection that eventually saw him establish a foundation for education in the poorest neighbourhood of Las Vegas, his hometown in the US.

She was so painfully close.

In one of the most memorable weeks of her career, Taylor Townsend

was on the brink of reaching her first career Grand Slam singles quarterfinal.

How close was she? After pummeling Barbora Krejcikova

6-1 in the first set of their fourth-round match in Louis Armstrong Stadium, the American had eight match points in the second set — seven of which came in one of the most thrilling, edge-of-your-seat tiebreaks in recent memory.

Over the course of over 25 minutes, with the 14,000-strong crowd in Armstrong rallying fiercely behind Townsend — and watching the incredibly tense rallies with bated breath — the two-time Grand Slam champion saved seven match points before closing it out 15-13.

She then took the next set 6-3 to move into the quarters in New York for the second time in her career.

Townsend burst into tears after the excruciatingly painful defeat, but after the match — after she’d had a bit of time to process it — she seemed grateful, motivated and ready to build on her momentum.

“I’m exactly where I need to be,” the 29-year-old told reporters. “I said it in D.C. — I was kind of inching there — but I’m exactly where I need to be. I’m playing the tennis I need to play to be inside the top 20, top 10, to win a Grand Slam. She’s a two-time Grand Slam champion. I have beaten a Grand Slam champion this tournament.

“So I have everything that I need, and it’s just about getting the reps, keep putting myself in these types of positions. This hurts, but it’s part of competition, it’s part of sports. But I’m right where I need to be.”

The Grand Slam champion that Townsend is referring to is Jelena Ostapenko

, who she upset in the second round. There was a heated exchange at the net after the match, and Townsend handled herself with grace and confidence, earning the support of fellow players and fans. She followed that up with an even bigger upset, a straight sets win over fifth-seeded Mirra Andreeva

, and tore the house down with a cool-as-can-be post-match interview in Arthur Ashe Stadium that cemented her as the darling of the tournament.

In Armstrong on Sunday, it was one of the most electric environments we’ve seen all tournament, and you could feel that something special was brewing. It wasn’t meant to be for Townsend, but she knows she’s not done.

“It just stings, because I literally gave everything,” the doubles World No. 1 said. “She came up with some really, really great tennis in moments where she was down, and I thought I had it. But it’s a part of sports. For me, I’m like, ‘Damn, when is the next time I’m going to play a singles match?’ I’m ready to go back again.

“I’m not done here. I have doubles tomorrow. I’m going to do everything that I can to hoist the trophy here. With that, I know I can do it, me and my partner have done it before. This is just motivating me to keep doing the things that I know I can do to be a champion. … I’m going to use what happened today to just fuel me.”

Elena Rybakina has reacted to her agonising defeat to Victoria Mboko in a thrilling semi-final at the 2025 Canadian Open.

The world No 12 fell 6-1, 5-7, 6-7(4) to 18-year-old Canadian wildcard Mboko in a contest lasting two hours and 45 minutes in Montreal.

In the deciding set, Rybakina served for the match twice — at 5-4 and 6-5 — and she held a match point at 40-30 in the first of those two games.

The 2022 Wimbledon champion was vying for her second title of the season after she won the clay-court WTA 500 tournament in Strasbourg in May. She has previously won two WTA 1000 titles, which came in Indian Wells and Rome in 2023.

Rybakina had defeated Hailey Baptiste, Jacqueline Cristian, Dayana Yastremska and Marta Kostyuk to reach the last four in Montreal.

After losing to Mboko, Rybakina remained positive about her run despite her difficult exit.

“Yeah, it was tough match, but overall I think successful week for me. Slowly getting better on the court, so yeah,” she assessed.

The 26-year-old Kazakh also admitted that the heavy crowd support for home favourite Mboko was challenging to deal with.

“Yeah, that wasn’t nice, of course,” Rybakina said.

“I played in a lot of situations where the crowd was supporting the [other] player, but I would say that here it was pretty tough from very beginning.

“I already felt it from the first game we played, and especially when it’s in between the serves.

“It is what it is. This is something I was kind of expecting, and definitely it didn’t depend anyhow on my serve or in the mistakes I did or wrong choices. It was obvious that the crowd is going to cheer for their player.”

Davide Sanguinetti, who started coaching Rybakina in February 2025, set the former world No 3 an ambitious ranking target in a recent interview with SuperTennis.

“At the moment, I’m a sort of ferryman: I joined her team in February, without any work behind me,” the Italian said.

“She explained to me more or less what she had done, and I asked her for two years of collaboration because I have my own working method: in the first year I would like to maintain the status quo, maybe finish at number 6 in the rankings, and next year I would like to take her to number one in the world: she has all the potential.”