The 2025 Jingshan Open, held from Sept 20 to 28 last year, attracted over 130 players from more than 20 countries and regions, including the United States, Canada and the Philippines.
With this event, Jingshan became China's first county-level city to host an international professional tennis tournament.
"With robust industry infrastructure, warm and genuine local players, and a tennis culture that permeates the entire city, we've seen many players from northern China travel here in autumn and winter. They play on the courts by day and soak in the hot springs by night, some even stay for weeks at a time," Luo says.
Qi Chengmei, a native of Wenfeng village, which boasts more than 80 tennis courts and over 800 tennis enthusiasts, spotted the boom in tennis tourism and decided to start a business.
"The courts in our village were packed every day, but there wasn't a single decent themed restaurant where players could come eat after a match," she recalls, sensing an opportunity.
She converted her family farmhouse into a tennis-themed restaurant. The dining hall is decorated with tennis-ball motifs, and the private dining rooms are named after such tournaments as the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the China Open.
The business has created jobs for more than a dozen local villagers. The restaurant now generates annual revenue exceeding 600,000 yuan.
Zuo Meng, a local crochet artist, has also found her niche in the tennis boom.
Every day after dropping her children off at school, she heads to her studio to craft tennis-themed handicrafts such as hair clips, plush keychains, handbags and necklaces.
"Jingshan has tennis tournaments almost every week now, so I follow the events with my stall. A single tournament can sometimes bring in 6,000 to 7,000 yuan," she says.
Currently, some 3,000 people in Jingshan are directly employed in tennis and related industries, while another 10,000 earn their livelihoods indirectly through the sport's ripple effect.
