China’s Tennis Town

TALK OF THE COURTS: China’s Tennis Town

By Fanfei Ye

Shortly after Zheng Qinwen became the first Chinese national to win the China Open in its 20-year history — by beating Mirra Andreeva, 7-5, 6-4 — video clips and images of her early titles began circulating on Chinese social media. In one of the photos, a smiling young Zheng, sporting an ear-length black bob and wearing a pale-lavender short-sleeved Nike polo shirt, raises her right arm high up in the air in a triumphant fist pump, while holding in her left hand a single white sheet of paper with the large printed title 获奖证书 (“Award Certificate”). The caption reads: Zheng Qinwen after winning the Hubei Junior Tennis Championship U10 Group in 2012 at age 10, her first title ever, in Jingshan, Hubei Province.

Jingshan, a small rural county town that sits at the heart of the hilly landforms of the Central China, was not dissimilar to thousands of other Chinese towns and villages —a tenacious historical town, with deep industrial roots, that had survived in the twentieth century a plethora of wars (the Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s, and the Chinese Civil War in the late 1940s), political campaigns (Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward in the 1950s, and his Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s), human and natural disasters (The Great Chinese Famine in the 1960s), economic upturns (Opening Up and Reform in the 1980s) and downturns (Xiagang Wave, which refers to the massive state-owned enterprises layoffs, in the 1990s). At the turn of the century, as China accelerated its growth, young people from Jingshan departed in droves for better opportunities in big cities. As a result, Jingshan and its many villages became the so-called “hollowed-out countryside.” In 2008, a local man brutally murdered five senior villagers and a seven-year-old boy, which briefly put Jingshan at the center of a national debate on the imbalance of rural-urban development. Like I said, just a typical Chinese town.

Qinwen Zheng (right) at age 9 playing local tournaments around Wuhan, where she moved from Jingshan, Hubei Province to receive advanced coaching.

The Tree of Life trophy awaiting the winner of the Rolex Paris Masters 1000 championship. Will Carlos Alcaraz add it to his collection or will the new ATP No. 1, Alexander Zverev

News Break… Bye-bye Asia, Hello France + California?

Carlos Alcaraz (ATP No. 3) lifted his fourth tour-level trophy of the year on Sunday at the Erste Bank Open in Vienna, then hopped a jet for the quick two-hour flight to the Rolex Paris Masters, hoping the winds carry him through to the final ATP Masters 1000 of the season. “Coming into this week, being the champion of Vienna, [I got] a lot of experience, rhythm, and confidence,” Alcaraz said during his pre-match presser. Since his comeback from four months of wrist rehabilitation, Alcaraz aims to add the Rolex “Tree of Faith” to his Tokyo Open orb and the octagonal handle-shaped RADO Erste Bank Trophy. “It was a long period of time that I was out, so I had a lot of time to think and feel,” Alcaraz added. “There [were] some moments that I was sure that I was going to come back at my best. [But] there were some moments that I had doubts about myself, I'm not gonna lie.” Alcaraz’s bottom half features plenty of players chasing the last of ATP Finals places, including Alex de Minaur (ATP No. 9) just 20 points shy of having Frances Tiafoe (ATP No. 8) and Rafael Jódar (ATP No. 10) about 201 points from the eighth — and final — slot.

Four of the eight of the WTA Finals Class of 2025 in Riyadh return to the tournament in Indian Wells, California this year: Jessica Pegula, Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina and Coco Gauff. In the others’ stead, come Elina Svitolina, Mirra Andreeva, Karolina Muchova and Linda Noskova.

Meanwhile, in California, the WTA fends off questions about finances, sustainability and yet another move for its year-end championships from military conflicted Saudi Arabia after only completing two years of a three-year agreement to stage the event in Riyadh. Renamed the FAGE WTA Finals — after the Greek yogurt company stepped in for sponsorship — earlier today the WTA and Chinese social media sensation TikTok announced a global partnership to “expand how fans discover and experience women’s tennis, combining player-led storytelling, creator content and innovative digital experiences.” In other words, the WTA could finally raise its social media to the level of the ATP. Tomorrow, TikTok will exclusively livestream the WTA Draw Ceremony, as well as “encourage players to use the platform to share their personalities, interests and experiences beyond competition.” Who will be crowned FAGE WTA Finals champion? Which singles star will raise the Billie Jean King Trophy or doubles team win the Martina Navratilova Trophy? For the first time since 2020, it won’t be Iga Swiatek, who ended her season without a Grand Slam title since 2021, and pulled out of the Ningbo Open announcing a long recharge before returning to court. Next week’s tournament could prove the most dramatic of the season: the top Czechs (Muchova and Noskova) against the top Americans (Pegula and Gauff) and the first appearance of Elina Svitolina sans Gael Monfils just two weeks after announcing their separation and impending divorce.

Qinwen Zheng holding the China Open trophy against the backdrop of the Great Wall of China. Zheng is a product of the post-Communist embrace of tennis following Li Na.

Back to End of the China Swing…

One could argue that it was against this backdrop that Jingshan found its solace in tennis. Peng Jufang, who is 65 years old today and runs a tennis club in Jingshan, remembered to the South Review (南风窗), a Chinese literary magazine, that the first tennis court in Jingshan was built in 1983 by a group of retired officials who were answering a call from the provincial government to look for a sport to keep themselves fit. A former county head settled on tennis because someone he trusted recommended it. Peng, then an employee at the local power supply bureau, and his colleagues leveled a patch of unused land near their office compound and built a dirt tennis court on it. They first played with wooden racquets.

Chinese local governments usually have an outsized sway in, well, almost everything in their jurisdiction, executive or not. And the government employees and retirees are often also the lifestyle “influencers”— to use a trendy word —among the locals. When they picked up tennis racquets, the masses followed. In the 90s, a county head and a deputy party secretary enjoyed playing tennis, according to Peng, and during their tenures, many local businesses began to organize tennis competitions and tournaments, and in turn, more people participated in the sport.

A street sign in Jingshan, Hubei privince reads, “Tennis culture is in Jingshan.” (Source: China Daily)

As popularity grew, tennis soon became a political Key Performance Indicator (KPI). A few months after the ten-year-old Zheng won her first U10 title in 2012, Jingshan was named “China’s Home of Tennis” by the General Administration of Sport of China. Jingshan government, together with the China Tennis Association, held a 15-day tennis-themed festival, kicked off by a massive opening ceremony in a newly built 3,500-seat tennis stadium, which cost a jaw-dropping CN¥175 million ($26 million). (For reference, it was 25 percent of Jingshan’s total fiscal revenue that year.) In addition, the county government began offering cash incentives for court construction. For each court built, the government would award 50,000 to 100,000 yuan ($7,100-14,000) to the developer. By the end of 2012, Jingshan had a total of 108 tennis courts peppering its town center area and its many villages.

Hubei Province is home to many of China’s tennis superstars. Twenty years before Zheng made history by winning the 2024 Paris Olympics Women’s Singles Gold Medal, in 2004 Athens, Li Ting, another Hubei native, won China’s first-ever Olympic Gold Medal in tennis in women’s doubles. And then, of course, there is Li Na, the trailblazer of Asian tennis who became the first Asian player, man or woman, to win a singles Grand Slam. On the men’s side, Hubei produced Pan Bing, China’s first Asian Games Gold Medalist in tennis (Hiroshima, 1994), and Zhu Benqiang, winner of Mixed Doubles at the FISU World University Games (Beijing, 2001, partner Li Na).

This year, Hubei had a surprising addition to its star-studded roster. Michael Zheng, the two-time NCAA singles champion, revealed that not only did his parents migrate to New Jersey from Hubei, but he was sent back there to live with his aunt until he was two years old. “My dad’s sister basically raised me,” Michael said in an interview in late September. “She’s going to come to watch me play.” Michael played in Hangzhou (250), losing in straight sets to Chinese rising star Bu Yunchaokete. And before he traveled to Shanghai to play his first Shanghai Masters, where he eventually lost to another Chinese power-hitter, Wu Yibing, he made a stop in Jingshan. He played in the Jingshan Open, an ATP Challenger event, where he fell to Yanki Erel of Turkey in the round of 16. “It’s special. I had a lot of relatives coming out to come and support my matches. Hopefully I get some home crowd support here.” M. Zheng said.

Peng Jufang, the father of Chinese tennis in Jingshan interviewed before one of many tennis tournaments that take place in Hubei Province, central China.

Jingshan Open (WTA 250 / ATP Challenger 100) is the epitome of nearly 30 years of tennis-focused local policy. A year ago, in its inaugural edition, Alex Eala was one of the first top-ranking players to step onto the brand-new Jingshan International Tennis Center. The 5,000-seat Center Court stadium and the facilities are so elaborate that I couldn’t help but immediately begin counting how many courts there are when I zoomed in on Google Maps. In reality, the center court alone is the fourth-largest tennis stadium in China, after only the center courts at China Open, Shanghai Masters, and Wuhan Open, on par with that of the Dubai Duty Free Championship.

Jingshan now goes all out about marketing its tennis. Official data shows that Jingshan now has a total of 356 tennis courts, that is 5.67 courts per ten thousand residents. As a comparison, London has 2 courts per 10k residents, and in NYC, the number is an abysmal 0.8. Jingshan also opens its courts to travelers from around the country. During the past Golden Week (China’s National Day holiday, from October 1st to 7th), 640,000 people visited Jingshan, many of them here for tennis. “Tennis is getting more and more expensive in Shanghai. An hour of private coaching can cost over 1,000 yuan (~142 USD),” One visitor said to the South Review. In Jingshan, the average price for private coaching is between 200 and 300 yuan (~28-35 USD). Off the courts, tennis-themed hotels, restaurants, cafes, bars, SPAs, and training camps are also popping up like mushrooms.

The inside of the Jingshan International Tennis Event Center, completed in July 2021 with a 5,400-seat arena and a comprehensive gymnasium, ranking f:irst in scale among prefecture-level cities nationwide.”

Jingshan government’s goal is ambitious: to become China’s Wimbledon. Or rather, to become like Wimbledon, the small middle-class village on the southwestern outskirts of London, which later became synonymous with tennis. While Jingshan is certainly on track to match — if not already overtaken — Wimbledon by the facilities and scale, the question is, can a politically motivated top-down approach create in the town a culture that Wimbledon spent 150 years building?

Chinese government is good at many things, but it’s widely accepted that sport is not one of them. Starting with football (soccer), the woes have now extended to basketball and even, recently, to ping pong — the one sport that China once had an absolute dominance in the world now begins to show cracks. But looking at Jingshan, one can’t help but think that the government is determined to make itself a successful outlier, and so far, so good.

Fanfei (Frank) Ye is a writer, entrepreneur, and digital professional based in Brooklyn and the UK. Has worked in digital marketing, social media, and media production with organizations such as Wimbledon, the BBC, the International Tennis Federation, and The New York Times. He holds a Masters Degree in Comparative China Studies from the London School of Economics.

Jingshan’s government aims to become China’s Wimbledon; in an ode to the annual Wimbledon Windows contest, it has homemade signs advertising tennis-themed restaurants, shops and post-match hang-outs.

ASK THE “BUTTERY”:

During his round-of-16 match against Botic van de Zandschulp at the Rolex Shanghai Masters in October, Spanish player Rafael Jódar grew impatient waiting for a towel and unloaded on a ball kid, yelling in Spanish: “¡Dame la puta toalla, coño!” (”Give me the f---ing towel, dammit!”) What do ball kids endure to get their jobs?

William Coles worked as a journalist for over 30 years, and in the past 15, has had 11 books published, including thinly veiled “novels’ related to his life, such as the tales of the Eton, Movie and Palace “Rogues.” An LTA-certified Chair Umpire, Coles recently released Wimbledon Rogue to notable acclaim.

The previous Australian Open collection as done by Ralph Lauren vs. the newly unveiled Hugo Boss uniforms to be worn by 4,000 AO employees in January.

RALLY SMASHES/SHANKS: The new Hugo Boss Australian Open Kit

This week, Hugo Boss, the sponsor of American player Taylor Fritz and Italian Matteo Berrettini, stepped out its two-toned, Steve-Irwin-inspired Australian Open collection for not only tournament officials, but also fans of the year’s first slam. The AO actually announced the deal in April, following the January 2026 expiration of Ralph Lauren’s six-year contract. Citing tennis as a part of BOSS’s DNA dating back to its David Cup sponsorship, Hugo Boss CEO Daniel Grieder said BOSS would bring “elevated style on and off the court” to Melbourne, combining sharp tailoring, sports-inspired looks and “standout hospitality moments.” Tennis Australia wanted a partner willing to invest and activate year-round rather than strictly focusing on the two-week tournament window, according to Business of Fashion. Ralph Lauren, it reported, treated the Australian Open as “one of several major tennis sponsorships (alongside Wimbledon and the US Open), whereas BOSS agreed to a broader, year-round collaboration.” Also good for exploring the Outback.

TENNIS CLUB OF THE WEEK: Tulsa Tennis Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma

Featuring the only clay courts in Oklahoma and possibly the region, the Tulsa Tennis Club — founded by seven oil barons in the boom town 100 years ago — has launched the careers of many a college- and pro-hopeful in its Midtown neighborhood. For nearly 20 years (1958 to 1975, the Club also hosted The Tulsa Invitation — or the TTC Invitational — a men's and women's clay court tennis tournament. Part of the ILTF World Circuit — the worldwide top-tier circuit for amateur players administered by the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) between 1913 and 1969 — the Tulsa Tennis Club has hosted such greats as Vic Seixas, Dick Stockton, Chris Evert and “Billie Jean Moffitt King.”