New types of sports such as pickleball and padel have gained popularity in China, and their mushrooming and thriving have powered development of relevant industries including surging sales of sports equipment.

Pickleball is about the size of a tennis ball but with many small holes on it. It is played with a paddle which is slightly larger than a ping pong paddle.

The sport is easy to learn and has gained popularity in many major Chinese cities.

"About 100 people would come to our club to experience the sport every week. For prime time slots, advance booking is required," said Wang Ningning who runs a pickleball club in Beijing.

In a pickleball equipment production factory in Dongguan City, south China’s Guangdong province, workers were packaging a batch of paddles before sending them to the coastal city of Qingdao in east China's Shandong Province.

Before last year, more than 90 percent of their orders were booked by overseas customers. With the rising demand in domestic market, the company has shifted 20 percent of their business to sales at home.

In Shanghai, another sport called padel is getting popular among young people. Padel is similar to tennis but is typically played in doubles on a court enclosed in armored glass walls.

"We usually make a play date in our chat group. We can book a court and play together if four to eight people sign up," said a padel enthusiast.

People can now buy padel equipment in many physical stores and the prices of rackets made of different materials range from 600 to over 1,000 yuan.

"At present padel equipment is a niche product in our store, but generally speaking, their sales are growing," said Jiang Yudan, manager of a sports shop in Shanghai.

With rising professional demand for sports equipment, some sports equipment manufacturers in China seek to develop new types of sports facilities containing intensive sci-tech innovation.