It’s getting harder to find a tennis court in Shanghai

I play tennis in Shanghai, and lately getting a court at the right time has become surprisingly difficult. What makes that more noticeable is that new places to play seem to be appearing everywhere. In Xuhui, The Ring Live (鑫耀·光环Live) has soccer and tennis courts on the roof, with basketball and badminton courts, a swimming pool and gym below. Elsewhere, spaces beneath elevated roads have been turned into places to exercise. This is by design. China ended 2025 with 3.11 sqm of sports venue space per person, and the National Fitness Plan for 2026 to 2030 (全民健身计划2026-2030年) wants that closer to four. And still, on a Saturday morning, you may struggle to get a booking. From outside China, sport here is easy to read through the usual headlines: a big tournament, a sponsorship, an athlete becoming a fashion figure, another mall adding courts to the roof. On the ground, the change feels less spectacular. It looks more like people simply giving more of their week to playing. The outfit can be bought in an afternoon. The backhand is less cooperative. Keep playing and tennis starts taking up more space in your life. There is the coach, the doubles group, the recurring booking and the messages on WeChat. Someone cancels, someone brings a friend, another court has to be found. Sometimes the whole morning disappears. Tennis has always carried a little status, and in parts of Shanghai it still does, at least among the younger professionals I play with. But there is also something in simply having the time to keep turning up. Getting better takes repetition, and so does becoming part of a group. Women accounted for 47% of players in the latest national tennis survey (中国网球事业发展基础数据), based on 2024 data, which also counted more than 25 million players and nearly 54,000 courts. Fitness is part of the attraction, but in my experience so are progress and simply having two hours that belong to you. Running has followed a similar path. What starts as exercise can become a group, then a race, perhaps a weekend away. Cycling groups stop for coffee. Parents wait through children’s lessons. Basketball ends with dinner. Why does Shanghai’s sports-event policy treat the hours around a match as the most valuable part of the consumer opportunity? Much of the recent global conversation about Chinese consumption has been about what people are buying less of. In practice, another question is becoming just as interesting: What are they choosing to spend more time doing? Policy is beginning to reflect this shift too. Shanghai’s 2026-2028 plan for the sports-event economy (上海市促进赛事经济高质量发展行动方案2026—2028年) describes the hour before an event and the two hours afterwards (赛前1小时、赛后2小时) as a “golden” period for consumption, linking sport with food, tourism and other activities. That logic is easy enough to understand around a major event. The less obvious opportunity sits between events. A weekend match can mean sunscreen beforehand and coffee afterwards, or lunch if it runs late. A child’s lesson leaves a parent with an hour nearby. A race can become the reason for a weekend away. None of this feels particularly like a sports economy when you are inside it. What changes for brands when sport stops being an occasional event and becomes a weekly habit, and who is building for that? Sponsorship is the visible commercial side, and it is already well understood. Athletes become ambassadors, tournaments attract sponsors, and luxury brands enter through hospitality, clothing, watches and celebrity. Around this year’s Rolex Shanghai Masters, Marriott Bonvoy, the tournament’s exclusive hospitality partner for a fourth consecutive year, has combined tennis with hotel stays and coaching. What happens around people who play every week is less visible. In Wuning (武宁), Jiangxi, a homestay that once struggled for guests is now booked every weekend because of tennis. Its owner, Yang Jin, also manages the courts, so the room, the court time and the racket and guidance for beginners all sit with one person. The county has built for it, with more than 200 courts and at least 5 million RMB ($750,000) a year set aside for facilities. Shanghai spreads the same Saturday across more hands: the coach runs the group, an app finds the court, and everyone ends up at the café. Not every brand needs to bundle it. A café near a court can become part of a doubles group’s routine without putting a racket in the window. Two hours outside changes what people carry and wear. Parents waiting through lessons begin to know the same places. For luxury, hospitality, beauty and retail, that creates a different kind of occasion. Luxury has always understood dinners, holidays, gifts and travel. The tennis player is back on Tuesday evening, Saturday morning, then the following week. Right now, the most visible tennis court in Shanghai is inside Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena (旗忠网球中心), where the Masters is played. I suspect the more interesting ones are the courts nobody is watching, already full at 9am. China State of Play is a strategic intelligence program from Jing Daily and Other Logic Partners. Marc-Olivier Arnold is co-founder of Other Logic Partners, where he advises CEOs and founders of premium brands on China and Asia, and Chinese brands on expanding internationally. He has worked between Europe and Asia for more than 20 years.

It’s getting harder to find a tennis court in Shanghai

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It’s getting harder to find a tennis court in Shanghai

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