As a Chinese Canadian who has returned dozens of times over the past 25 years, I see those half-full stadiums differently. They don’t reflect a lack of interest; they reflect a culture of work and time off that outsiders rarely see.
Since Li Na’s Grand Slam breakthroughs in 2011 and 2014, tennis infrastructure in China has exploded. The ITF’s 2024 Global Tennis Report ranked China third worldwide in total courts—behind the US and Japan—with more than 50,000 courts across the country. In Jingshan, Hubei, home province of Zheng Qinwen, 340 courts exist to serve a city of just 645,900 people. To put that in perspective, Boston—a city with a similar population and a deep tennis history—has about 135 public courts.