Before Qinwen Zheng and Li Na, there was another great personality from China who was almost equally passionate about tennis. It was Chairman Mao Tse-Tung….
There is much attention focused on tennis in China with the success of Zheng, following in the footsteps of Li Na, the first Chinese player to win a major singles titles at the French Open in 2011 and at the Australian Open in 2014.
It is interesting to know that Mao, the founder of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and its ruler until his death in 1976, was also an enthusiastic tennis player and that he played in a lot more tiring environments. Bud Collins, the one-and-only and irreplaceable tennis personality, author and Hall of Famer, wrote of Chairman Mao in the “They Also Serve” biography section of his authoritative book “The Bud Collins History of Tennis” which is for sale and download here: https://a.co/d/9V197JJ
Wrote Collins in his “tome” of Mao, “Chairman Mao’s biographer, Edgar Snow, reported that the chairman enjoyed playing tennis with comrades in Shensi Province after his army had survived the famed, brutal Long March of 6,000 miles in 1935. Unfortunately his tennis career ended when a goat ate the net. That must have gotten his goat. But he would have been proud of Zi Yan and Jie Zheng, first Chinese ladies to win majors, Australian and Wimbledon doubles, 2006. Mao was born December 26, 1893 in Shaoshan Xiang Tan, Hunan Province, China and died at the age of 82, September 9, 1976 in Beijing.”
