What Peng Shuai Started
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Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2021
⏱️ 25 minutes
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Summary
Hi Hang Up and Listen listeners, we thought you'd be interested in this episode of What Next, Slate's daily news podcast. Enjoy!
When Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai accused a former Chinese Vice Premier of rape, what came next was darkly predictable: the athlete disappeared from public view while the government scrubbed all mentions of her allegations and censored searches for her name. But few expected the Women’s Tennis Association to strike back, suspending all future tournaments in China and Hong Kong.
As the WTA stands up to China - leaving millions of dollars on the table - will other sports organizations follow suit and hold the government to account over its human rights abuses?
Guest: Ben Rothenberg, senior editor of Racquet Magazine and host of the tennis podcast No Challenges Remaining.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I called up Ben Rothenberg to tell me about the scandal that has upended the world of women's tennis. |
| 0:10.5 | But before we unpacked this scandal, I asked him to unpack the tennis and say what he loves about watching Pung Shui on the court. |
| 0:21.8 | What's unique about Pung Shui is that she has both a double-handed forehand and backhand. |
| 0:26.3 | So she's just two hands to swing on both sides of her body, which is pretty unusual. |
| 0:31.7 | So she's powerful? |
| 0:33.0 | She's powerful. She's not the fastest player, but she's powerful. |
| 0:35.8 | She's very aggressive, very opportunistic, and a very determined player on court. |
| 0:41.9 | Determined is a pretty good adjective to describe Pung Shui. At her peak, she was the 14th ranked women's player in the world. |
| 0:51.9 | Best known for this one match. |
| 0:54.9 | The 2014 U.S. Open was down to the Final Four Women Friday as the last grand slam of the year |
| 1:00.8 | got down to the real business in New York. |
| 1:04.0 | She had made the semifinals of the 2014 U.S. Open. She played a very dramatic match there |
| 1:08.3 | in the semifinals where she was beating Carolyn Wozniakie. |
| 1:11.4 | But the real drama came midway through the second. |
| 1:14.6 | Peng appearing to suffer from a severe cramp. |
| 1:16.6 | It was a very hot day in New York, hot, humid, really oppressive late summer weather there. |
| 1:22.6 | And she was really fading physically with the heat and having something that looked like with Virgil in heat stroke. |
| 1:30.0 | He has to retire. |
| 1:31.3 | Games had match. |
| 1:35.3 | It really was heartbreaking stuff. |
| 1:37.4 | She was sobbing at the back of the court. |
| 1:39.5 | She had to be wheelchered off the court. |
... |
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