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XINING, Northwest China, Jan.19-- Eight-year-old Li Jiarong never expected that one day she would be able to learn tennis on her own doorstep. What surprised her even more was that her coach was from outside of China. "Rachel, you didn't follow through. Give me 10 push-ups," said Joshua Robinson. It would be difficult to guess that Robinson is a foreigner if you only listen to him speaking Mandarin. Every afternoon after school, at the local tennis court in Huzhu Tu Autonomous County, located in Northwest China's Qinghai Province, many children like Li Jiarong are exposed to tennis under the leadership of coach Robinson. Huzhu is the only autonomous county of the Tu ethnic group in China. "The coach is usually strict, but also humorous. I prefer tennis to piano," Li Jiarong said. After nearly an hour and a half of training, Li's cheeks were red and her forehead beaded with sweat. Robinson repeatedly stresses the essentials of each movement, and the children do their best to keep up. Robinson, 37, from Wisconsin of the United States, graduated from the University of Milwaukee with a major in Chinese in 2013. He began playing tennis at the age of 12 and was also keen on baseball, American football, swimming and other sports since an early age. Influenced by his mother, Robinson had always wanted to visit China. In 2009, he came to China, studied Chinese and worked as a private teacher in Beijing. "In the autumn of 2013, I came to Qinghai for the first time. I was deeply impressed by the blue sky, white clouds and snowy mountains. I was even more surprised to find the same clay court as the French open in such a remote county," Robinson said. After that, he returned to Beijing to work as a personal tennis coach. The job was easy and lucrative, but he always wanted to do more. | 
