"We only have about 100 people to play soft tennis in China, most of them are college students," said Bin Zhou, coach of the Chinese women team, at the Khalifa Soft Tennis Courts here on Friday.

"For the Doha Asiad, we sent in seven players. Five of them arefrom colleges, and they will retire soon after they graduate."

China has geared up in the past two years to promote the sport in the country, with high schools and colleges as its priority. And the sport's national governing body also set up a training base for about half a year, inviting Japanese coaches and players for their expertise.

However, soft tennis is still far away from being popular in the country due to its non-Olympic status.

"Athletes of South Korea, Chinese Taipei and Japan have longer playing career. Some can even play for more than 20 years at their professional clubs. But we don't have such teams in China," Bin added.

Accordingly, South Korea, Japan and Chinese Taipei will become the main contenders during the December 2-8 tournament in Doha. They split all the medals at the 2002 Busan Asiad in South Korea, except a bronze medal in the women's singles which went to China.

"We hope at least one of our Chinese players will win a medal in the Games."