Tennis
China tennis star Peng says ex-vice premier forced her into sex
Former world No.1 tennis doubles player Peng Shuai, one of China’s biggest sporting stars, has publicly accused a former Chinese vice premier of forcing her into sex several years ago in a social media post that was later deleted.
According to a screenshot of her verified Weibo account late on Tuesday, Peng said that Zhang Gaoli, who became a member of the Politburo Standing Committee – China’s top decision-making body – coerced her into sex and they later had an on-off consensual relationship.
The post was deleted around half an hour after it was published, although searches for Peng’s name on China’s tightly controlled internet surged after the posting, and screenshots were shared among private WeChat groups and over iMessage.
China’s internet is heavily censored and the private lives of top leaders are an especially sensitive subject.
Peng, who said in the post that she could provide no evidence to back her allegations, did not respond to a request for comment sent to her Weibo account. Sports marketing agency APG, which says on its website that it represents her, did not respond to a request for comment.
China’s State Council Information Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment, including for comment from Zhang. When asked at a regular daily briefing about the Weibo post, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said he was not aware of the issue and that “this is not a question related to foreign affairs”.
Weibo and Tencent, which operates WeChat, did not respond to requests for comment.
Sexual harassment and assault were for years rarely broached in public in China until a #MeToo movement began in 2018, when a Beijing college student publicly accused her professor of sexual harassment. That spread to non-government organisations, media and other industries.
A Weibo timescale function showed that a hashtag of Peng Shuai’s name, which had few to no mentions prior to Tuesday, has racked up more than 20 million views since her post. Discussions of the hashtag surged around the time of Peng’s post, but later plummeted as posts on the topic were deleted.
By early Wednesday, searches for Peng’s name on Weibo yielded no results and discussions of the topic were blocked. Users of WeChat and QQ, another chat app, were blocked from sending the screenshots to each other.
While Peng’s Weibo account remained available, with earlier posts visible, the comment and repost functions were disabled.
Zhang, now 75, was a vice premier between 2013 and 2018 and had also been party secretary of the northeastern province of Shandong. He served on the Politburo Standing Committee between 2012 and 2017.
Peng was the world No.1 doubles player in 2014, the first Chinese player to achieve a top ranking, after winning the doubles titles at Wimbledon in 2013 and the French Open in 2014.
-Reuters
Argentina’s 36-year-old Marco Trungelliti proved tennis dreams do not come with an expiration date when he became the oldest first-time tour-level finalist in the Open Era after beating the top seed at the Grand Prix Hassan II semi-finals in Marrakech on Saturday.
Trungelliti, who came through the tournament’s qualifiers, upset Italy’s defending champion Luciano Darderi 6-4 7-6(2) to break the previous record held by Victor Estrella Burgos of the Dominican Republic, who reached his first final aged 34 years in 2015.
Darderi, ranked 19 in the world, was only six-years-old when Trungelliti turned pro in 2008. With the victory, Trungelliti secured just his second career top-20 win.
“Of course, I believed it, that’s one of the reasons that I’m here. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be possible,” Trungelliti said in the on-court interview.
“I’ve worked a lot, me and my team and also my wife, my kid. We all believed in breaking the record basically and that’s exactly what we have done now.”
The milestone caps a remarkable journey for Trungelliti, who made his first ATP Tour semi-final in 2018 in Umag, Croatia – 402 weeks ago.
Having entered the tournament ranked 117 in the world, Trungelliti’s breakthrough week has already guaranteed he will crack the top 100 for the first time. He is currently ranked number 75 in the live rankings.
“It’s been happening the whole week, leaving the court with a victory,” added Trungelliti, who has dropped only one set at the tournament. “So hopefully (there) is one more to go.”
He will face Rafael Jodar on Sunday after the Spaniard prevented an all-Argentine final with a 6-2 6-1 victory over Camilo Ugo Carabelli.
-Reuters
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Serena Williams has been listed as eligible to return to tennis by the sport’s drug-testing body (ITIA) as of February 22, though it remains unclear whether the 23-time Grand Slam champion will make a stunning comeback to the women’s tour.
The 44-year-old raised eyebrows late last year after rejoining the tennis anti-doping testing pool, though she denied at the time the move signalled she was preparing to return to the sport she dominated for nearly two decades.
She reignited speculation last month when she deflected questions about a possible return during an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show.
The Women’s Tennis Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside normal business hours.
Williams, who won her last Grand Slam singles title in 2017, has not competed since the 2022 U.S. Open.
-Reuters
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Serena Williams has re-entered the tennis anti-doping testing pool but the 23-times Grand Slam champion denied on Tuesday that the move had anything to do with her making a return to the sport she dominated for nearly two decades.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency confirmed to Reuters that Williams, who has not competed since the 2022 U.S. Open, was among the list of players in its testing pool, which requires individuals to provide their whereabouts at any given time, every day, and participate in random testing
But as the story of 44-year-old Williams’ inclusion on the list, first reported earlier on Tuesday by The Athletic, gained traction and sparked talk about her potential return, the tennis great took to social media to deny a comeback was in her plans.
“Omg yall I’m NOT coming back. This wildfire is crazy,” Williams wrote on X.
Her agent did not immediately respond to an email from Reuters asking why the player had re-entered the testing pool.
Williams’ name appears on the ITIA website’s list of retired players and would be able to return to a sanctioned event after making herself available for out-of-competition testing for at least six months.
Last week former world number one Williams posted a series of photos on Instagram showing herself on a tennis court with her youngest daughter, Adira River, whom she gave birth to in August 2023.
In August 2022, ahead of her final U.S. Open, Williams announced in a Vogue article that she was “evolving away from tennis.”
Williams, who won her last Grand Slam singles title in 2017, had been chasing an elusive 24th crown that would have drawn her level with Australian Margaret Court, who holds the record.
The American came tantalisingly close to achieving that feat, featuring in four major finals since giving birth to her first daughter, Olympia, in 2017.
-Reuters
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