The head of the women’s professional tennis tour tells AP that the suspension of all WTA tournaments in China could extend beyond 2022 because of concerns about the safety of Grand Slam doubles champion Peng Shuai.
FILE - WTA CEO Steve Simon appears during a retirement ceremony for Martina Hingis in Singapore. The suspension of all WTA tournaments in China because of concerns about the safety of Peng Shuai, a Grand Slam doubles champion who accused a former government official there of sexual assault, could result in cancellations of those events beyond 2022, Simon told The Associated Press on Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021.
Peng dropped out of public view after raising the allegations about former vice premier Zhang Gaoli in a Nov. 2 social media posting that was quickly taken down by Chinese authorities. Simon said the suspension, announced Wednesday via a statement from him issued by the tour, means that tournaments could still end up being staged in China if its government follows through with his requests. If not, the events could be moved to other countries, as happened this year, when the tour’s Asian swing was called off because of COVID-19 concerns; the WTA Finals, for example, were shifted to Guadalajara, Mexico, last month.
A statement attributed to Peng two weeks and tweeted out by the international arm of Chinese state broadcaster CCTV included a retraction of her accusations. In a tweet that was later deleted, the editor of hard-line nationalist Communist Party newspaper Global Times criticized the WTA for “coercing Peng Shuai to support the West’s attack on Chinese system.”
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