Peng Shuai | Breaking the silence
The HinduFor more than a decade, 35-year-old Peng Shuai has been a household name in China. Partnering with Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei, Ms. Peng’s two Grand Slam wins, at Wimbledon in 2013 and at the French Open the following year, were widely celebrated in her home country. “Even if it is only me, like an egg dashing against a rock or a moth towards the flame seeking self-destruction, I will tell the truth about you.” Her note was censored half an hour after it was published, but by the following day, it had become a huge talking point regardless of a mammoth censorship effort that blocked all searches of Ms. Peng’s name. In 2011, the year she said she first met Mr. Zhang, Ms. Peng reached a career high world rank of 14 in women’s singles. Lu Pin, a Chinese feminist activist who is editor of Feminist Voices, observed on Twitter that Ms. Peng’s revelations this week had struck a chord among many young women, an all-too-familiar tale of exploitation by men in power who usually got away with doing so.