Kho Sin-Kie

Kho Sin-Khie (Chinese: 許承基; pinyin: Xǔ Chéngjī; September 2, 1912 – January 31, 1947) was an Indonesian-born tennis player who represented the Republic of China in the Davis Cup.

[1] Kho was born and raised in Java to a poor family[10] in an eggplant farm where his father, Han Ting was the head of the village.

[18] In 1935, the Dutch Indies Tennis Association invited a couple of European players to play a series of exhibition matches in the Orient.

In Surabaya, he paired with Nami to face Giorgio de Stefani and Enrique Maier and lost in two sets.

Then the party traveled to Surakarta where singles matches were held and Kho faced de Stefani with the Italian coming out victoriously.

Then on a rematch in Semarang, Kho prevailed for the first time over de Stefani in front a home crowd of two thousand.

[19] While touring America, Kho reached the doubles finals of the 1935 Kansas City Championships with Lewis D. Carson, losing to Wilbur Coen and William Kiley.

[8] Kho won numerous tournaments in Europe, most notably winning the British Hard Court Championships twice, in 1938 and 1939 and was a runner-up in 1946.

[27] They paired for the doubles of the Nice Lawn Tennis Club where they triumphed over Jean Lesueur and William Robertson.

[28] Also in February at Carlton Club of Cannes, Brugnon and Kho were on the opposite side in the mixed semifinals where they teamed with Simone Matthieu and Nancy Liebert respectively.

For the men's doubles, Brugnon and Robertson formed a team this time and met in the final with Kho and Landau.

[34] In April, he defended his South of France title against Swiss Max Ellmer and this time gained the doubles crown with Brugnon.

[37] Later that month, he reached the fourth round of the 1938 Wimbledon Championships, scoring victories over Harold Hare, Georg von Metaxa and Ian Collins.

[38] In March, Brugnon and Kho lost the International Championships of Cairo doubles to the team of Gottfried von Cramm and Pat Hughes.

[42] In 1946, he went for the North of England Championships title at Scarborough, but was eliminated in both the singles and doubles finals by Jack Edwin Harper and Harper-Cam Malfroy respectively.

[47] In order to help his country against the Empire of Japan he participated in a series of exhibition matches with Englishman Pat Hughes in the Malacca Lawn Tennis Club.

Kho Sin-Kie (second from left) in Poland in 1939
Headstone of Kho's grave