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What facilities are available at Qizhong?

A first-timer's guide to Qizhong's 80 hectares

Qizhong is a genuinely large complex — 80 hectares, three showcourts, and dozens more practice and qualifying courts, built around a real "forest sports city" concept: 46% of the site is deliberately kept as green, open space rather than paved-over stadium footprint. Budget real walking time between courts — this isn't a compact European stadium.

The roof, and why it's not just decoration

Center Court's retractable roof is built from eight petal-shaped panels, each weighing two tons, modeled on Shanghai's official flower — the magnolia. It takes eight minutes to fully open or close, letting the tournament run matches indoors or outdoors depending on weather. Designed by Japanese architect Mitsuru Senda's firm, the venue was completed in October 2005 specifically for this tournament's move to Shanghai.

Site layout

Center Court

13,779 seats — the venue's magnolia-roof marquee court

Grandstand 2

5,000 seats, own retractable canopy

Grandstand 3

3,000 seats

Court 17

1,200-seat purpose-built practice stadium, opened 2025 — included with any Grounds Pass

Other practice/qualifying courts

Dozens more across the wider 80-hectare complex

Center Court — Inside Qizhong's Magnolia-Roofed Stadium

Center Court — Inside Qizhong's Magnolia-Roofed Stadium

★4.5(57 Google reviews)

13,779 seats, an 8-petal retractable roof, and the tournament's real main stage

Most Masters 1000 venues are functional bowls that happen to host great tennis. Center Court is a real architectural statement first — the magnolia roof isn't decoration bolted onto a generic stadium, it's the building's entire organizing idea, and it produces a genuinely different in-person experience (the roof motion, the contained acoustics, the weather-proofing) than the tournament's own outer courts or any other stop on the tour.

Minhang District

Worth knowing

  • —If the roof is closed when you arrive and the forecast is clear, don't assume the match is delayed for weather — it's sometimes closed pre-emptively and reopened once the risk passes, so check the actual match status rather than reading the roof position as a signal on its own.
  • —The steepest, closest sections are the lower-tier Category S/1 seats — if atmosphere and proximity matter more to you than a panoramic view, prioritize those tiers over a technically "better sightline" upper seat.
Qizhong Arena — Inside the Venue

Qizhong Arena — Inside the Venue

★4.5(57 Google reviews)

The magnolia-roofed stadium built for a Masters Cup, kept for a Masters 1000

This is the arena where the ATP's marquee November finale used to live before Europe won it back — and the fact that Shanghai kept building on that legacy rather than treating 2009 as a downgrade is exactly why the roof still works overtime today. You're not watching tennis in a repurposed multi-use dome; you're inside a building designed, from its first blueprint, around one sport and one spectacle. That specificity shows in details a generic arena wouldn't bother funding: sightlines built for tennis's low, fast trajectories, and a roof mechanism that exists purely because Shanghai's early-October weather can't be trusted for eight straight days of outdoor play.

Minhang District

Worth knowing

  • —A grounds pass alone gets you into the practice courts, where top-20 players warm up close enough to hear racket strings — often a better view than a cheap Center Court seat for the early rounds.
  • —The walk between the three show courts and the outer practice courts is genuinely long across the 80-hectare complex — budget 15-20 minutes if you're trying to catch matches on different courts back to back.

Facilities inside the arena

Food and drink

Concession stands and merchandise shops operate throughout the complex. Outside food and drink generally isn't allowed into ticketed sports venues in China — see the First-Timer's Guide for the full bag and prohibited-items policy.

Accessibility and re-entry — what's actually confirmed

We couldn't find a genuinely primary source (an official venue or tournament page) confirming specific accessibility arrangements or a re-entry policy for this venue — the sources we found read as generic template content, not verified facts, so we're not passing them off as confirmed. If you need accessible seating or re-entry details, contact the tournament directly via en.rolexshanghaimasters.com ahead of your visit. See the Arrival guide for what we could confirm on gates and entry.

Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena venue map, showing Center Court, the outer showcourts, and Court 17

Center Court map via ztmen.jussyun.com, the official Shanghai Masters ticketing platform.

Internationally recognized

Qizhong won the IOC/IAKS Silver Award in 2009, a real international recognition for exemplary sports and leisure facility design — a signal of how the venue was regarded architecturally well before the tournament's current scale.

Sources: Wikipedia (Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena — design, roof, size, green-space figures, IOC/IAKS award), sportsmatik.com, tennistours.com seating guide, ztmen.jussyun.com (venue map). Verified 10 Aug 2026.