by Xinhua writers Chen Binjie, Yan Rui and Lyu Qiuping
WUHAN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A cattle farmer who also coaches tennis, Peng Jufang perfectly captures the one-of-a-kind tennis boom sweeping Jingshan, a county-level city in central China's Hubei Province.
In 1986, while working at a local power supply station, Peng and his colleagues flattened a vacant lot and built a simple sandy tennis court. Over the past four decades, he has kept playing tennis while running his cattle breeding business, and has coached more than 3,000 amateur players in the county's Wenfeng Village.
"Villagers can put down their hoes and pick up a racket any time," he said. "Age, occupation or skill level doesn't matter. Anyone can embrace the sport."
Peng's story mirrors the transformation of Jingshan, where tennis has evolved from a rural pastime into a key engine for local growth and rural revitalization.
By promoting grassroots tennis, integrating sports with tourism and building a future-oriented tennis manufacturing cluster, Jingshan has crafted a sports-led model that offers a template for other Chinese counties to drive growth through sports industries.
Jingshan's relationship with tennis began more than four decades ago, when residents of Wenfeng Village formed a senior tennis team on a dirt court. After the city launched a city-wide tennis promotion drive in 2008, public courts multiplied, standardized tournaments took shape, and the sport gradually moved from rural amateur groups to mainstream urban public life.
Although it has fewer than 600,000 permanent residents, Jingshan is now home to 356 standard tennis courts and over 100,000 regular players. Wenfeng Village alone features more than 80 courts, allowing villagers to play tennis at their doorstep.
"Tennis is no longer a luxury but a sport of everyday life," said Bao Zhuolun, a coach at the provincial tennis school.
The booming tennis culture has brought tangible income growth for local residents. Many villagers rent spare rooms to parents accompanying tennis trainees, while others run tennis-themed restaurants and homestays. The village's low-cost grassroots tournaments, with an entry fee of only 28 yuan (about 4 U.S. dollars) per player, attract hundreds of players from major cities every week, greatly boosting local catering and accommodation consumption.
Young migrant workers are coming home as well, with tennis clubs, restaurants and guesthouses featuring hot springs founded by returning villagers.
Tennis has grown into a signature pillar industry across Jingshan. The Jingshan Open last year attracted 56,000 spectators and drove 110 million yuan in direct tourism revenue. The city receives over 3 million tennis-themed tourist visits annually, with its comprehensive tennis industry output value surpassing 3.5 billion yuan.
To build its smart-driven tennis industry, Jingshan has begun construction of a digital zero-carbon tennis industrial park, attracting industry chain-related projects worth over 10 billion yuan over the past three years.
Jingshan is not alone in leveraging tennis for development. In east China's Jiangxi Province, Wuning County -- a designated national tennis demonstration zone -- has dotted its towns and rural areas with over 200 courts, hosted dozens of international and national tournaments, and cultivated a growing pool of young talent, fueling local sports tourism and rural prosperity. In 2025, Wuning received over 250,000 tourists, generating nearly 200 million yuan in sports tourism consumption.
These local successes ride on a wave of nationwide momentum. Official data showed China's tennis population reached 25.19 million in 2024, up 28 percent from 2021, laying a solid mass foundation for sports-driven county development.
This trend aligns with China's broader strategy under the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030), which calls for developing distinctive county-level economies and promoting integrated development that revitalizes industries, strengthens counties, and enriches local residents.
Looking ahead, Fu Hanlu, a subdistrict-level official in Jingshan, said Wenfeng Village plans to introduce professional operators and build a tennis-themed resort, aiming to turn the area into a suburban vacation destination featuring hot springs and tennis. ■
