When it comes to Chinese tennis, many people think of Li Na, the first person in the Asian tennis world. But long before Li Na, there was a talented tennis player named Hu Na who was also very good. However, when she went to the United States with the national team, she suddenly disappeared, so where did she go? What was her life like after that?
In 1963, Hu Na was born into a sports family in Chongqing, Sichuan.
Speaking of which, Hu Na's grandfather Wen Ling was the best tennis star in the Republic of China period, winning the tennis championship in his early years, and later being hired by the warlord Yang Sen and was very highly regarded. After liberation, he has been a famous tennis coach in the country and has trained many tennis players. Hu Na's grandmother was also a key basketball player at Jiangnan Girls' School in her early years.
Hu Na, who has excellent sports genes, has heard about it since childhood and has developed a strong interest in tennis. So, at the age of 4, she became grandpa's youngest team member. Hu Na is very talented and has unique conditions. This made her tennis skills improve by leaps and bounds at a young age, and soon she entered the Sichuan Provincial Tennis Team with impressive results.
In the provincial tennis team, Hu Na is still training hard. Although her abilities have been very high,000, she still meticulously completes all her training tasks every day. In addition to training, Hu Na often ponders various serve and catch skills to improve her skills.
Kung Fu paid off, and Hu Na soon became the lone loser in the provincial team, and at the age of 15, she had already won the women's singles championship in the national youth tennis competition and successfully entered the national team.
At that time, China's sports development was not as prosperous as it is now, and tennis was not as popular as table tennis, which made tennis games at that time not as many tennis matches. In addition, the age restriction is also relatively relaxed, so whether it is an adult competition or a youth competition, there is a figure of Hu Na sweating like rain.
In 1979, at the age of 16, Hu Na won the national Group A women's singles championship. After the success of the First World War, she won the Asian Women's Singles Championship and attracted the attention of the world. At the end of the same year, with the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States, Chinese and American athletes also got the opportunity to observe and learn from each other. As a Chinese tennis star, Hu Na was given the opportunity to watch the US Open in the United States, and then she played several youth games in the United States, and won the White House Cup and the Virginia Cup, and she was also praised by American fans for her superb skills.
Among them, american coach Vic Brandon, after watching Huna's matches, decided that her potential in tennis would shine in the world, so he invited her to join his club many times and promised to provide her with all the favorable conditions and support to let her participate in various professional competitions.
Although Huna was impressed, as a member of the national team at the time, she had to comply with the rules of the national team, so she asked Vic Brandon to write to the National Sports Bureau and said that she would join Vic Brandon's club as long as the Sports Bureau agreed.
However, although Vic Brandon wrote many letters to the National Sports Bureau, he did not get a reply. In fact, Hu Na had long expected this ending, when participants like the Asian Games and the Olympic Games had to be non-professional athletes, so if she signed with Vic Brandon's club, she would not be able to replace the country in a large sports event like the Olympic Games.
In 1982, the national women's tennis team once again traveled to the United States to compete in the Tennis Federation Cup, and Hu Na, as the hope star of national women's tennis, deservedly participated in this tournament.
On the first day of the match, Hu Na played quite well on the field and quickly defeated the Japanese players by a score of 2-0. According to the competition schedule, the next day, Hu Na will represent the Chinese team against the German team. But no one expected that on the morning of the second day of the game, the coach and the players found that Hu Na was missing. After the accident, the coach and the players looked everywhere, but found nothing. At a loss, Hu Na called her coach through her lawyer and said she was safe and was seeking "asylum" in the United States. What's going on here?
It turned out that after Hu Na went to the United States twice to broaden her horizons, she was bent on becoming a professional tennis player. But not only is it impossible to have such opportunities in China, but even tennis matches are rare, in order to get better conditions and competition opportunities, After Hu Na came to the United States again, she wanted to make her tennis career develop better. So she made a desperate bet and finally made the decision to defect.
In order to paralyze the coach and teammates, Hu Na left the hotel without any luggage, but only carried a bucket to go. She thought that if she met her teammates, she could lie and say she would go to the shower. But it was late at night, and no one noticed her at all. So she got out of the hotel and escaped in a car and sought "asylum" from the U.S. government.
According to common sense, seeking such "asylum" is often persecuted by one's own country and has to flee to another country. Obviously, the state did not persecute Hu Na, but also spent a lot of manpower and financial resources to cultivate her, so that she has today's achievements.
HuNa's approach allowed the self-proclaimed powerful United States to immediately find value that could be used, so the United States took the opportunity to make a big fuss. Despite repeated representations with the US government, our Ministry of Foreign Affairs hopes that the United States can repatriate Hu Na and said that it does not blame Hu Na in the past, still maintains her national team qualifications, and participates in various domestic and international competitions.
The United States turned a deaf ear to repeated protests by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, allowing Hu Na to remain in the United States.
But Hu Na did not know that because of her defection, it had a very bad impact on the country, and at the same time caused a lot of losses. The state suspended all remaining programs of Sino-US cultural exchanges, and in order to prevent the recurrence of athlete defections, the state also terminated sports exchanges with the United States. At that time, there were still 10 competitions to the United States, which were also cancelled. In addition to some foreign policies and sports developments that affected the country, Hu Na's leaders and teammates were also severely punished, and the coaches who led the team were even expelled.
So, Hu Na is in the United States, and what kind of development has it developed since then?
At that time, she did not have a green card, which means that she did not have an identity, and of course did not qualify for the competition.
Fortunately, there was a club that had been providing her with basic life support at that time, and she had to continue training before getting her green card to ensure that her strength would not regress.
After obtaining a green card, Hu Na could only compete at the lowest level due to no ranking. She was 21 years old at the time and often had to play against opponents who were fourteen or fifteen years old. In terms of strength, although she has the advantage, it is obviously not a little challenging to win the game in this way.
In 1984, Huna was finally able to compete in the Pro Women's Open. This year she welcomed her first Grand Slam at the U.S. Open, and she began to make her mark on U.S. tennis.
In 1985, Huna reached the third round at the Wimbledon Championships with excellent performances. In tennis, it is difficult for Asians to compete with Europeans and Americans, and Hu Na became the first Chinese to reach the third round. She then reached the second round of the US Open with excellent form, but this was already her best result.
Since then, Huna has continued to participate in various tennis tournaments until 1992, when she had to retire due to injuries. In her 8-year professional tennis career, she won a total of 16 Grand Slams, which also gave her a sense of accomplishment.
Subsequently, Hu Na lived in the United States for another 5 years, during which time she studied economic management and also obtained a coaching qualification. At this time, the state's policy on going abroad had begun to relax, so she took her parents to the United States for reunion.
Later, a company in Taiwan invited Hu Na to be a tennis consultant, and she also won a tennis critic at a Hong Kong TV station with her resume as a tennis professional. During that period, Hu Na opened a tennis club in Taiwan on the one hand, and on the other hand, won the pursuit of countless fans with accurate commentary. It can be said that at this time, Hu Na has achieved success in her career, and her life has been as she wished, and she has been blossoming in her tennis career.
While Hu Na's career is booming, our country is also developing rapidly in all aspects. So in recent years, Hu Na has frequently returned to China to contact, and turned into a painter, and also held a special exhibition in Beijing.
A reporter asked Hu Na why she left the United States that year? Hu Na said that she only hoped to become a professional tennis player at the time, and the rest was not taken into account due to her youth.
However, Hu Na's answer caused public anger on the Internet, and many people accused her of not having a patriotic heart and having no remorse for the mistakes she had made, not to mention half an apology to the country and the leaders and teammates who had influenced her life.
Hu Na also said very affectionately during the reporter's question session that she was far away in a foreign country and had always suffered from nostalgia, and said that she was a person who missed the past very much. Her words were once again ridiculed by netizens, who said that when the country needed her to win glory for the country, she ran away; now that the country is rich and strong, she has returned, and the good things in the world have caught her!
It seems that no matter how long time has passed, no matter how Hu Na washes her white, her defection behavior will always become a stain on her life, which is always beyond doubt.