In this work, sulfur- doped carbon spheres with hierarchical micro/mesopores (denoted as S- MCSs) were fabricated via a sol- gel method combined with surfactant- directing assembly strategy and subsequent sulfuration process. When used as anode materials of sodium- ion batteries (SIBs), S- MCSs show excellent electrochemical performance with a high maximum reversible capacity of 443.4 mA h g (1) after 50 cycles at 50 mA g (1), and even at a high current density of 1 A g (1), a reversible capacity of 238.2 mA h g (1) is obtained after 600 cycles, mainly due to their hierarchical micro/ mesoporous structure with high specific surface area, large pore volume and high sulfur content. The excellent cycling performance and high capacity enable the S- MCSs to be a promising candidate for SIBs. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.