Former world No.1 tennis doubles player Peng Shuai, one of China's leading sports stars, has publicly accused former Chinese vice premier Zhang Gaoli of forcing her to have sex with him in a social media post.

The media post that sent shock waves through the Communist country was deleted half an hour after it was published as China's internet is under strict censorship and any mention of the private lives of top leaders is not allowed.

According to a screenshot of her verified Weibo account late on Tuesday, Peng said that Zhang Gaoli, who became a member of the Politburo Standing Committee coerced her into sex and they later had an on-off consensual relationship.

In the now-deleted post  Peng, 35, said she and Zhang Gaoli, 75, had an on-off extramarital “relationship” over several years, which she said he tried to keep secret. Peng said Zhang had stopped contacting her after he rose in the ranks of the Communist party, and that at one point he expressed concern that she might tape their encounters, according to a report in The Guardian.

About three years ago, she wrote, Zhang invited her to play tennis with him and his wife and then sexually assaulted her in his house. “I never consented that afternoon, crying all the time,” she wrote.

Although the post was deleted, searches for Peng's name on China's tightly controlled internet surged after the posting, and screenshots were shared among private WeChat groups and over iMessage, according to a Reuters report.

Peng said in the post that she could not provide evidence to back her allegations.

A Weibo timeline feature showed that a hashtag of Peng Shuai’s name, which had little to no mentions prior to Tuesday, has got more than 20 million views since its publication.

China's State Council Information Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment, including for comment from Zhang. When asked at a regular daily briefing about the Weibo post, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said he was not aware of the issue and that "this is not a question related to foreign affairs."