Tennis serves up success in Hubei

Peng Jufang, 64, runs such a club. He was among the first generation in the city to pick up a tennis racket.

"In 1985, Hubei province required each county to select one sport for elderly residents to develop as a priority. Jingshan chose tennis," he recalls.

At the time, there was an open plot behind the urban power supply office where Peng worked.

He and a few colleagues first leveled the ground with a plow, then compacted it with a stone roller to create a simple clay court.

On that very court, a group of senior tennis enthusiasts practiced and trained together daily, eventually winning the amateur group championship at a provincial senior tennis open. That victory introduced tennis to a wider population across Jingshan.

With a wooden racket in hand, Peng began a 38-year commitment to the sport.

His career path shifted over the decades, from the power supply office to fertilizer distribution, and later to beef cattle farming.

Yet through every change, his racket stayed with him.

The same decades witnessed Jingshan's tennis evolution toward scale and systematization.

In the 1990s, the city's amateur sports school introduced tennis programs to cultivate young talent. After 2008, Jingshan made a concerted push to bring tennis into government offices, communities, businesses, schools and villages, spurring court construction and drawing large numbers of residents into the sport. Today, more than 100,000 people in Jingshan play tennis on a regular basis, according to Luo Nian, deputy director of the Jingshan culture and tourism bureau.

Luo adds that Jingshan has also built an industrial park to house smart production lines for tennis balls and rackets, continuously expanding the industry chain across equipment manufacturing, tournament operations, and wellness tourism.