In the present work, the hierarchical Zn3V3O8@C/rGO composite with a unique lychee-like architecture was fabricated by a simple one-pot ethanol thermal reduction strategy. When used as an anode material, it exhibited outstanding electrochemical performance for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). For instance, the Zn3V3O8@C/rGO composite delivers high reversible capacities (1012 mAh g(-1) at 0.1 A g(-1) after 200 cycles) and high rate stability (448 mAh g(-1) at 4 A g(-1) after 1000 cycles). This outstanding performance can be attributed to the synergistic effect of the diverse structural virtues, effective interface and dual-spatially hybrid carbon network. Significantly, this one-pot simple strategy can be extended to fabricating highly stable and high rate performance of vanadates or other anode materials for LIBs. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.