beijing concerns over the safety of peng shuai have prompted the womens tennis association to suspend all tournaments in china after she made sexual assault allegations against a former top politician in beijingthe chinese tennis star alleged on november 2 on the twitterlike weibo that she had been forced into sex by former vicepremier zhang gaoli with whom she said that she had a longterm onoff relationship the post was swiftly deleted and peng was not seen publicly for nearly three weeksthe 35yearold reappeared as a guest at a youth tennis tournament in beijing and then held a video call with thomas bach president of the international olympic committeeconcerns about her wellbeing have persisted however and the wtas steve simon said wednesday he could not in good conscience hold events in chinaso who is peng shuaipeng is one of chinas biggest sports stars winning the womens doubles at wimbledon in 2013 alongside taiwans hsieh suwei for her first grand slam titlea second followed at the french open in 2014 again with her longtime friend hsieh and peng spent 20 weeks that year ranked number one in doublesshe also enjoyed her best grand slam singles run in 2014 reaching the semifinals of the us openshe has won 23 wta doubles and two singles titles earning prize money of nearly 10 millionpeng is currently ranked 191st in the world in doubles and has not been seen on the wta tour since the qatar open in february 2020 just before the coronavirus pandemic shut down global tennis for almost five monthspeng was in august 2018 banned from tennis for six months and fined 10000 for attempting to force hsieh to withdraw as her doubles partner for wimbledon 2017 after the signin deadlinealthough the offer was refused and peng shuai did not subsequently compete at the championships it constituted a breach of the tennis anticorruption program the tennis integrity unit said accusing peng of using coercion and the possibility of financial reward to hsieh to withdrawpeng was born in january 1986 in xiangtan in the central province of hunan to a father who was a policeman the city also happens to be the hometown of the founder of communist china mao zedongshe grew up in an ordinary family according to local media and was introduced to tennis at the age of eight by her uncle a former tennis coachpengs fledgling career was nearly cut short when doctors said she would need an operation to treat a heart defect at 12she insisted that the operation go ahead despite her familys concerns about undergoing the procedure at such a young age because she loved tennis too much she once saidshe travelled alone to the united states at 15 to further her training armed only with an electronic dictionary