Abstract: The sustained breakthroughs of Chinese competitive tennis players in international tournaments point to new directions in the country's athlete development modes. By re-examining the historical trajectory of competitive tennis player development in China, this study proposes an "element–interaction–environment" framework for analyzing the adaptive development system of Chinese tennis players. The transformation of the system's actor-element structure is reflected in the inclusive development of a three-tier training network, the renewed centrality of the family as a developmental actor, and the multidimensional configuration of social actors. Across different stages of athlete development, the interactive advantages of refined family-based support, concentrated institutional training, and responsive social-sector participation help ease the polarized logic of a single driving element and reveal a nonlinear curve of element effects. The coordinated development and emergent order of competitive tennis, mass participation tennis, school tennis, and the tennis industry together constitute the macro-environment that sustains this adaptive system. Looking ahead, further efforts should be made to explore the adaptive support from hybrid elements, alignment among interactive principles, and selection of enabling developmental environments. These efforts should also extend to examine how the Chinese tennis experience can be adapted to other sports, with the aim of offering case-based insights for cultivating reserve talents in other competitive sports.