HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam - She is Vietnam's top-ranked female tennis player. Still, Noel Huynh Mai Huynh is criticized by the state-run press and jeered by Vietnamese crowds who do not accept her as one of their own.

It's a personal struggle symbolic of the lingering resentment and distrust between communist Vietnam and the hundreds of thousands who fled the south at the end of the Vietnam War nearly 30 years ago.

"I play tennis for my family," Huynh said during a break from practice at the Southeast Asian Games, a regional competition that runs through Saturday. "There's a lot of pressure because I know a lot of people, they don't like me very much."

Huynh, 18, was born in the U.S. territory of Guam. She is the first Viet kieu, or overseas Vietnamese, to receive dual citizenship from the communist government to compete for Vietnam.

Huynh was 4 years old when her family moved back to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, in 1989. She did not speak Vietnamese then but has since mastered the language and now considers herself more Vietnamese than American.

Still, many are wary. She is thought of as spoiled because of her American passport. It doesn't seem to matter that she has never been on the U.S. mainland.

She and her four siblings, all accomplished tennis players, have been passed over for less-talented Vietnamese players.

"We practice in Vietnam, we grew up in Vietnam ... and they cannot beat us, so they try to keep us out of competitions so we don't beat them," said her brother, Jean-Pierre Qui Phu Huynh Jr.

The 65-year-old family patriarch, also named Jean-Pierre, is their inspiration. In perfect English, he recounts the path that led him from Vietnam in 1975 and back 14 years later.

He fought for the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese army and was the tennis coach for former President Nguyen Van Thieu. He put his wife and children on one of the last helicopters leaving the U.S. Embassy before Saigon fell April 30, 1975. He spent the next six months searching for his family, finding them in California.

They moved to Guam, where French-educated Jean-Pierre became a top tennis player with a big house and booming business building tennis courts. Still, something was missing. So he decided to go home in 1987.

"Like in tennis, you go to the net," he said. "They say how you play tennis is how you act in life."

The family, all U.S. citizens, returned to Vietnam two years later. Most refugees were too scared to think of visiting then.

The elder Huynh coached his children up to eight hours a day, six days a week, and tried to make sure they got to play.

He became friends with former Prime Minster Vo Van Kiet, a tennis fan, and built the country's largest tennis complex in Ho Chi Minh City. He brought in international tennis competitions and urged Vietnam to strengthen its national team. Still, the discrimination persisted.

"I don't care about anybody who cheers for the other player," his daughter said. "It's OK for me, but sometimes I'm kind of sad about that because I'm on the national team but they always want the other players to beat me."

With Vietnam hosting the Southeast Asian Games for the first time and encouraging about 2.5 million Viet kieu to return, she was given a chance at this event.

"With the participation of Huynh Mai Huynh, the Vietnamese tennis team will be stronger," said Nguyen Hong Minh, head of the Vietnamese SEA Games sports delegation. "This is in our policy to expand international relations as well as win the support of the overseas Vietnamese community."

She was eliminated from doubles and mixed doubles. Her strength is singles, but she said her coaches didn't select her for that event.

Huynh says all she wants is to represent the country she considers home.

"I'll stay here," she said. "And I'll play for Vietnam forever."