Chinese tennis player disappeared after accusing former government member of sexual abuse

According to the Le Monde newspaper, the Chinese tennis player Shuai Peng is missing after accusing the former vice president of the country of sexual abuse.

She accused the politician Zhang Gaoli through social media - and strangely enough, 20 minutes later, the message she posted disappeared.

Peng (35), openly denounced the Chinese leader on the Weibo social network (Chinese equivalent to Facebook) - with the post vanishing soon after. The word tennis ('wangqiu') was even censored on the social network.

According to Peng, Gaoli (75), one of the most important Chinese politicians between 2013 and 2018, forced her to have sex.

In the post, Peng revealed that she and Zhang - who is married - have been involved in an on-off affair dating back to 2011 when the pair met in the port city of Tianjin.

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The post details how Peng slept with Zhang once that year, and possibly a second time before he was promoted to the bureau and cut all ties with her.

He allegedly revived the affair in 2018 after his retirement from politics, by inviting Peng for dinner with his wife after which he pressured her into sex.

That kicked off a three-year affair, Peng alleged, which she described as 'unpleasant'.

In the post, she admits to having 'no evidence' that the affair ever took place because Zhang insisted on keeping it a total secret.

'You’ve said you are not afraid. But even as an egg hurled at a rock, a moth to a flame for self-destruction, I will speak the truth with you.' her post concluded.

Social network Weibo is heavily monitored by the Chinese state. Peng's profile is still active and shows up on a Google search, but the post is missing and comments on all of Peng's other posts are disabled.

Trying to post about Peng or Zhang on Weibo also throws up an error, even when the posts themselves do not mention the alleged affair.

The error message says the post violates 'relevant laws and regulations' without elaborating further.

China's foreign ministry has denied all knowledge of the matter and Zhang has also not responded to requests for comment.

Peng, who was number one in the world doubles ranking in 2014 and is currently 191st in the individual ranking, has not played a tournament since the beginning of the pandemic (she played her last tournament in February 2020 in Doha).

Her 23 doubles titles (especially Roland Garros 2014) and two in singles (Tianjin (2016) and Nanchang (2017)) make her one of the most successful Chinese tennis players.

One of the speculations is that Peng had fled to the United States.