WTA CEO Steve Simon announced plans to resume holding tournaments in China. It haven’t been held there almost 1,5 years due to the incident with athlete Peng Shuai.
In early November 2021, 35-year-old tennis player Peng Shuai accused the Zhang Gaoli, former Chinese Vice Premier, of forcing her to have sexual intercourse. This post of Ms Shuai in social networks has been quickly deleted, as well as her accounts, and Shuai herself stopped communicating. In early December in less than a month, the Women’s Tennis Association suspended all initiatives under its auspices in China in support of Ms Peng.
The Deleted Post
The deleted post described in details the story between sportswoman and former Vice Premier. It stated that at least once she felt that she’s being forced to have sex. Immediately the post went viral.
The athlete later declined that she ever wrote anything like this. Later in an interview to L’Equipe, Ms Peng denied the allegations again. It seems that the French edition of L’Equipe, which published the latest comments given under tightly controlled conditions, not only printed the “interview”, but also became involved in a propaganda stunt. The newspaper itself claims that it really agreed to publish the athlete’s answers, but with no comments around them. Athlete noted that she “never said that she’s sexually harassed by anyone”, although her post contained the words “you took me to your house and raped me”.
After 16 Months WTA Decided to Resume Tournaments in China
Steve Simon noted that WTA decided to resume tournaments in The People’s Republic. In particular, representatives of the Women’s Tennis Association were unable to meet with Ms Shuai.
He emphasized that the position of the Tennis Association on this incident was correct, but after 16 months it became clear that their requests will never be satisfied, which means that there’s no sense to move with the same strategy and a new way should be considered.
WTA CEO informed that they are ready to resume tournaments in China, but he assured that the situation with athlete is not forgotten.
Steve Simon also revealed that the tournament schedule in China is gonna be be determined next month and will include the WTA Finals in Shenzhen.
