In the late 1980s Tang and her fellow countrywoman Huang Hua were touted by some to be China's next generation of dominant female singles players, taking over from Li Lingwei and Han Aiping.

Within a few years, however, they were upstaged by an even younger group of precocious badminton talents that included Indonesia's Susi Susanti, South Korea's Bang Soo-hyun, and China's own Ye Zhaoying.

To prepare for the Olympic Games, her coach arranged a base in the Beijing Miyun Reservoir where she could be nursed for a month, but the subsequent training still affected her health.

The hematuria reappeared and affected her play at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games where she managed to reach the semifinals and earn a bronze medal.

As pre-event favorite for the gold medal, however, her lopsided loss to Korean player Bang Soo-hyun received such negative criticism in China that she considered immediately retiring.

At the beginning of 2002, the Hunan Provincial Sports Bureau appointed Tang Jiuhong to the Yiyang City and she became the Chaoyang District deputy mayor, as a grass-roots testing exercise.