At this year's Shanghai Masters, local young Special Olympic athletes had the opportunity to play tennis with professional players at an event specially designed for them.
The event, named Play Unified with Special Olympics, is dedicated to the promotion of the social inclusion of the intellectually disabled through sports training and competition experience.
Some one hundred young Special Olympians from three local special schools returned serves from world No.2 men's doubles duo Alexander Peya and Bruno Soares.
Chinese tennis player Wu Di, a Shanghai native, has also taken some time off from practice to show the children a trick or two in tennis.
Ms Fan is a teacher from Dong Li Feng Mei School for the Intellectual Disabled, she hopes there will be more similar events where the children with special needs can feel included and happy.
"These children have never played tennis before. At this event, they can experience tennis and get to know the sport. I can see they are having a lot of fun playing tennis with the professional players. I hope there will be more events like this where these children can enjoy themselves. "
After the practice round comes the unified tennis match where young special Olympians and their adult teammates play for the grand prize - a pair of tickets to the semi-finals of the Shanghai Rolex Masters.
Li Sujuan from East China University of Political Science and Law was the winner of the prize.
Li says there is much more to be done in order to raise awareness of the wellbeing of people with intellectual disabilities.
I think we should organize more events to draw our attention to the wellbeing of this special group of people. These children need our help and care. The public should all pitch in for the good cause. I work as a volunteer for a charity and I deem it my duty to help the disadvantaged people in our society."
Play Unified with Special Olympics has sent out a simple yet clear message - training together and playing together is a quick path to friendship and understanding.
Having sport in common is just one more way that stereotypes and false ideas are being swept away.
For CRI, this is Luo Wen in Shanghai.
