YINCHUAN, China, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Under the scorching sun dozens of children practiced tirelessly hitting groundstrokes from the baseline at an outdoor tennis court here on Saturday afternoon.

They are recruits of a summer sports camp for youth, an annual program which is free of charge and was launched three years ago by the local government of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in northwest China. The summer sports camp covers a variety of sports including tennis, basketball and football.

10-year-old Xu Hairong is one of the tennis camp participants. After days of drills, she enjoys playing tennis now very much.

"My girl has been learning the piano and painting, but these activities need excessive sitting, and she is a little introverted. When I saw the information on the free tennis training this summer, I registered her online soon," said Li, Xu's mother.

Li is happy to see that her girl gradually gets attracted to tennis and has made new friends. "After the free training class is over, I would like to pay for her to keep learning," she said.

According to Chen Kai, a coach for the tennis camp, they used to hold free training activities at schools and some parent-child tennis carnivals in the last few years, but all were canceled this year due to the COVID-19.

"The camp were fully booked on the first day of online registration, because a lot of parents hope that their children can make use of the summer holidays to cultivate a sports talent, and children really like it," said Chen.

To ensure children's safety during practice, all coaches including Chen are professional, and there are also eight assistants responsible for children's safety. Besides, rackets and balls offered to children for free are all specially designed.

Working as a professional coach since 2013, Chen noticed that the number of tennis fans has risen in recent years. "The first few years when I came to Ningxia, people playing tennis in the gym were rarely seen. In these years, however, almost all tennis courts are packed with people," he said.

With the improvement of living standards, Chinese people tend to pay more attention to health and fitness, and the governments at all levels have also made efforts to build sports facilities.

Apart from the summer sports camp tailored for kids, a free tennis training program was open to all Yinchuan citizens and more than 3,000 people joined in, according to the Ningxia Tennis Association.

"Since the training programs was launched three years ago, more and more people are joining in," said Cai Shufang, the head of the Ningxia Tennis Association. "We do this to get more people involved in tennis, and make it their life-long hobby."

According to Cai, after the new term begins, the Ningxia Sports Bureau and related departments plan to make use of weekends to provide more free sports training classes for teenagers.

"Sedentary lifestyle is common among children due to academic stress. Based on the national standard for teenagers' physical exercises, we will ensure each student master at least one sports skill so that their flexibility, sensitivity and fitness will be strengthened." Enditem

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