Under the blue sky and white clouds, there was a burst of applause in the Hengqin International Tennis Center.

December 3, 2025 is the 34th International Day of Persons with Disabilities, and the tennis competition of the 12th Paralympic Games and the 9th Special Olympics of the People's Republic of China ushered in another match day at the Hengqin International Tennis Center. Sichuan's Wang Ziying won the women's singles final in the wheelchair group, and the mixed doubles gold medal in the hearing-impaired group was won by Zhejiang's "husband and wife" Tang Xueliang and Sun Yan.

In addition to competition, there is a warm and tenacious force surging here. Athletes swing and turn around, and the sound of wheelchairs scratching the ground intertwined with the crisp sound of tennis balls hitting the racket. Inside and outside the arena, everyone is cheering for life.

On the field

Hard work is their common answer

In the past two years, China's para tennis, especially wheelchair tennis, has achieved many successful results, and has achieved a number of historic breakthroughs in international competitions such as Grand Slams and the Olympic Games.

This tournament brought together the top domestic players, with a total of 55 players from eight teams from Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Sichuan, Hong Kong and Hebei signing up for the competition. Some people reverse, some lose, but in this arena, every athlete proves in his own way that dreams can go farther.

For Wang Ziying, the road to tennis began with an unexpected "salvage".

Born in 1998, she lost her right leg in a car accident when she was two and a half years old. "The first time I met a tennis coach, I was in the pool!" She recalled with a smile, "He fished it up for me and asked me if I wanted to play tennis?" ”

Switching from swimming to wheelchair tennis is a big challenge. Wang Ziying's hands are relatively small, and when she holds the racket and then pushes the wheelchair, she can only use the racket against the spokes of the wheelchair. In order to control the wheelchair freely, she trains for eight or nine hours a day, "sometimes I can't lift my arms the next day."

But she said, "The coach believes I can do it, and I believe I can." ”

The same belief supports our country's first wheelchair tennis player to appear in the "Grand Slam" Zhu Zhenzhen to go global.

At the age of 2, she lost her ability to walk due to illness, and at the age of 16, she came into contact with wheelchair tennis and played from the provincial team to the national team. Since 2019, Zhu Zhenzhen has begun to push a wheelchair alone, drag a luggage cart higher than her head, and travel around the world to participate in professional tours.

"I pushed a wheelchair and an airport car, leaning over to look at the road." While playing the tour station by station abroad, she also saw a bigger world, and it turned out that she could reach so far with a wheelchair.

In the ITF world rankings, every athlete has a national flag after their name. "I especially like the feeling of looking at the flag behind the name going up," Zhu Zhenzhen said, "and it is my wish to let the world see the Chinese flag on it." ”

In the city

There is no hindrance to love, it is the temperature of Hengqin

A high-level event tests not only athletes.

Zhu Zhenzhen was full of praise for the environment of Hengqin: "The blue sky and white clouds, the air is fresh, very comfortable, it is very suitable for playing tennis and sports." ”

Since the beginning of this year, Zhu Zhenzhen has been training in Zhuhai, and for her, Zhuhai is like "her second hometown". After the game, she wanted to go to the Hengqin Flower Sea Promenade to chase a beautiful sunset.

What surprised her the most about this competition was the barrier-free facilities in Hengqin. She bluntly said that the venue is "the same as the high-level competition arena of the four Grand Slams". This high-standard competition environment allows players to focus on the game itself without distractions.

This feeling has also been confirmed by Wang Ziying, the women's singles champion in the wheelchair group. In the women's singles final of the wheelchair group, Sichuan's Wang Ziying reversed Guangdong's golden chain 0:4, 4:1, 4:2 and successfully won the championship.

"The venue is great!" Wang Ziying said that the venue facilities, services and volunteers in Hengqin all made her feel "very intimate and very good".

Behind this feeling is a "fine surgery" that benefits people's livelihood in the long run.

In order to meet the needs of the Special Olympics, the Hengqin International Tennis Center has begun to carry out renovation and upgrading projects since 2024, and passed the barrier-free environment inspection of the Guangdong Division Executive Committee of the Special Olympics Paralympics with the highest level of "excellent" in May this year.

In terms of hardware, the venue infrastructure has completed barrier-free adaptation, including barrier-free passages, blind lane layouts, barrier-free parking spaces, barrier-free toilets, barrier-free elevators, etc.

In terms of software, in response to the needs of hearing-impaired athletes, each group of hearing-impaired group events is equipped with exclusive sign language teachers, 268 event volunteers are strengthened sign language training and practical courses are added, and a 48-person volunteer team is set up on the city side.

In addition, the Urban Planning and Construction Bureau of the Cooperation Zone has set its sights on the subtleties that are easy to overlook, implemented the transformation of "one station, one policy", and tailored plans for each platform and intersection.

The data records changes: 82 municipal road barrier-free ramps have been renovated, 41 bus station ramps have been renovated, and 296-meter passage handrails have been installed.

At the Hengqin International Tennis Center bus station, this concept is condensed into the country's first intelligent and prefabricated barrier-free bus station. It is not only a bus shelter, but also an integrated multi-functional service island, with barrier-free toilets, voice station announcement systems, braille maps, and wireless networks.

"For residents who rely on wheelchairs to travel, the visually impaired or the elderly with children, the height difference between the sidewalk and the road, and an inconspicuous obstacle on the platform may become a 'natural moat' that prevents them from integrating into the city." The relevant person in charge of the cooperation zone said, "It is these 'natural moats' that we want to eliminate, and the goal is to achieve seamless travel of people of all ages." ”

The road to integration

Let everyone be seen

Paralympic athletes strive to be the first on the field, demonstrating their courage to overcome obstacles, challenge limits, and surpass themselves, and also interpret the spirit of self-esteem, self-confidence, self-reliance and self-improvement of disabled people.

When playing abroad, Zhu Zhenzhen saw how to carry out sports for the disabled abroad, and there were disabled people in various clubs. "Now is a national sport, including the disabled, and I hope that more disabled friends can participate and enjoy the happiness brought by sports together."

In addition to sports, Hengqin is building more stages for people with disabilities to integrate into the city and show themselves.

On November 29, the 2025 Hengqin and Macao Disabled Cultural and Art Show was staged at the Tianmu Hotel in Hengqin, with sign language songs, dances, dramas and other programs presented by a number of art groups for people with disabilities from Hengqin and Macao.

On December 3, the Hengqin and Macao Photography Skills Training Program for the Hearing Impaired was launched in the Cooperation Zone, where participants learned to express and record beauty through the lens.

"During the training process, I was amazed by the sensitivity of the students to capture the world with their eyes, and I was particularly moved by their seriousness." Zhu Xi, the first lecturer, said, "I hope that through this training, more hearing-impaired people can master photography skills, record the beauty of life with the lens, and let their inner world be seen by more people." ”

From the arena to the streets, from hardware to software, Hengqin is weaving a "all-age friendly, integrated and shared" urban network with the height of science and technology, the precision of skills, and the temperature of concepts. Here, every resident is the owner of the city who can work hard, create, and enjoy life.