Tennis in China is a rapidly growing sport that has received much private and public support, and has today become firmly entrenched in the Chinese consciousness as one of the most popular. Tennis is now the third-most popular sport on television in China, behind football and basketball.
网球运动在中国发展很快。它现已成为当下中国最流行的运动之一。就电视收视率而论，网球节目在中国排名第三，仅次于足球和篮球。
China has 30,000 tennis courts and an estimated 14 million people in China regularly play tennis, up from 1 million when the sport returned to the Olympics in 1988, according to the WTA Tour.
据国际女子职业网球协会统计，中国拥有约3万个网球场，并有约1400万中国人经常打网球。而当1988年这项运动回归奥运会时，中国网球人口的数量还只有100万。
The nation’s tennis market has reached $4 billion annually, according to Tom Cannon, a professor and sports finance expert at the University of Liverpool Management School in England.
据英国利物浦大学的一位教授计算，中国网球市场价值每年都能达到40亿美元。
（作者厉振羽，系国际主流媒体双语体育专栏作家、中国日报网特约专栏作家）
来源：人民网
