Fresh off her latest Grand Slam triumph, Taiwanese tennis star Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) brushed aside rumors that she may give up her Taiwanese citizenship to represent China, declaring on Facebook that “rumors cannot be trusted.”
Hsieh and her Chinese partner Peng Shuai (彭帥) grabbed the women’s doubles title at the French Open in Paris on Sunday with an emphatic 6-4, 6-1 win over former champions Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci of Italy.
It was the duo’s second Grand Slam win after capturing the women’s doubles title at Wimbledon last year and perhaps even more remarkably their 12th consecutive triumph in a final.
However, the victory also compelled Taiwanese Internet media to speculate again about Hsieh’s future, rehashing rumors that she was considering taking on Chinese citizenship in exchange for a lucrative sponsorship contract last year after winning Wimbledon.
On Facebook, Hsieh made it clear that she has no plans to change her nationality and made fun of the rumors.
“China is already an old topic. Why don’t we change countries this time. How about Bhutan?” she joked.
Hsieh said in her latest post that she must now concentrate on preparing for Wimbledon, which begins on June 23, and will not be able to return to Taiwan until after the tournament.
However, she thanked her fans for their concern and support.
“This moment of glory belongs to us and it also belongs to you,” Hsieh wrote.
The financial problems that plagued Hsieh before her Wimbledon title last year have been eased markedly by her success.
Hsieh’s victory in Paris brought her combined earnings from all of her events this year to nearly US$560,000, according to the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Web site.
She also won US$1.1 million on the tour last year, and her combined winnings last year and this year account for half of her career prize money of US$3.33 million.
The French Open title also helped Hsieh regain her place as No. 1 with Peng in the women’s doubles rankings, after first reaching the plateau on May 12 for one week before falling back to second.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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