All Hong Kong Schools Jing Ying Volleyball Tournament

The **All Hong Kong Schools Jing Ying Volleyball Tournament** (Chinese: 全港學界精英排球比賽, often referred as the **Jing Ying Volleyball Tournament**, the **Jing Ying Tournament** or just **Jing Ying**) is an annual territory-wide volleyball competition, and one of the HKSSF volleyball competitions. Since 2004, the Tournament has always been held at the Tsing Yi Sports Centre from 27 to 31 December.

## Structure

It is divided into the girls' category and the boys' category. Each category has 24 competing teams, qualified through their respective district-level U19 / A-Grade competitons.

### Qualifications, seedings and drawing of lots

12 teams from the Urban Region and the top 2 teams from each of the 6 New Territories competition districts are qualified to the tournament.

#### Urban Region

The 12 teams from the Urban Region includes the top 3 teams from each of the 2 groups in the Urban Division 1, the top 3 (boys) / 2 (girls) teams from each of the 2 second-level divisions, and the champions of each of the 2 girls' third-level divisions.

The top 4 teams of the Urban Division 1 qualify directly to the eighth-finals, and are seeded according to their ranks.

#### New Territories

The champions of each of the 6 districts are ranked according to the performance of their respective districts in the Top 8 of the previous tournament. Only the top 4 of the champions can directly qualify to the eighth-finals. The runners-up of the top 4 districts are allocated tiers different from the champions of their respective districts.

#### Drawing of lots

The drawing of lots would usually take place after all district-level U19 / A-Grade matches have ended, in mid to late December.

The ties in the district rankings will first be broken, then the teams of the fifth and sixth districts will be drawn into the upper tier and the lower tier. After that, 8 urban teams, 4 New Territories teams from the upper tier and 4 New Territories teams from the lower tier will be drawn into their respective positions.

## Schedule

Starting from 2004, the tournament is held from 27 to 31 December. The Round of 24 takes place on 27 December, where 16 teams from each category without byes face off to proceed to the Round of 16 on 28 December. The winners of the matches on 28 December will face off in the quarterfinals on 29 December, whose winners will advance to the semifinals on 30 December. The winners of the semifinals will proceed to the 5-set Grand Final, while the losers will proceed to the 3-set third-place match, both of which will take place on 31 December in the same venue. A prize-giving ceremony for the top four teams and the best players will come after the last match of the day.

### Venue arrangements

Matches are being played in both courts of the same venue during 27-29 December. For grand finals, and since 2017, semifinals, matches are played only in the front court. The back court mobile spectators stand will be expanded and moved forward, while the rest of the back court is vacated for warm-ups.

The first two match days ends at 19:00, which is beyond the sunset time. Because of this, the Tournament has earned a reputation of "a yule party that lasts from morning all the way to the night".

List of match days in the Jing Ying Tournament since 2004
 Booking session
 Matches
8 per side
8 per side
4 per side

## List of editions

List of editions of the Jing Ying Tournament (2020-present)
 2021 | TBD

## Significance to the Carmelian PopStars

The Carmelian PopStars view the tournament with high importance. It is the tournament that started the friendship between Josie and Rachel, the tournament where all Carmelian schools have the opportunity come together and play matches at the same venue, and the tournament that concludes the calendar year.

Therefore, the @carmelpopstars Instagram account would add "\_jingying##" (## being the current calendar year), to signify their common goal to enter the Jing Ying Tournament together.

On 31 December 2020, the day when the Grand Final of the 2020 Tournament would have been held, five members of the Carmelian PopStars organized the All Hong Kong Schools Jing Ying Volleyball Concert 2020, which concluded with the Carmelian anthem and the new year speeches by the members.

## Related stories

* 2017
	+ *CALFSS vs CHWSS (post)*
* 2018
	+ *Memories of Jing Ying '17*
* 2019
	+ *Postponement of Jing Ying 2019*
	+ *Jing Ying '19, a ball that never was*
* 2020
	+ *Revisiting Tsing Yi*
	+ *Three Years of Friendship*

## Notes and References

1. ↑ Indefinitely postponed, then permanently cancelled.