WTA suspends tournaments in China over Peng Shuai concerns

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) on
Wednesday suspended all tournaments in China and Hong Kong after finding no
convincing inputs from the Chinese authority about the safety of the country’s
former world No. 1 doubles player Peng Shuai.

“With the full support of the WTA Board of
Directors, I am announcing the immediate suspension of all WTA tournaments in
China, including Hong Kong,” said the WTA chairman, Steve Simon, in a statement
on the governing body’s website.

“In good conscience, I do not see how I can
ask our athletes to compete there when Peng Shuai is not allowed to communicate
freely and has seemingly been pressured to contradict her allegation of sexual
assault. Given the current state of affairs, I am also greatly concerned about
the risks that all of our players and staff could face if we were to hold
events in China in 2022,” Simon added.

Earlier when Peng Shuai went missing in
November after making an allegation of sexual harassment against former
vice-premier of China Zhang Gaoli, WTA said it would suspend all tournaments in
China giving away business of billions of dollars if her allegation was not
investigated.

Now as the WTA suspended all the
tournaments in China it marked a paradigm shift in how international sports
associations have dealt with China as the country becomes more assertive in its
way of dealing with both domestic and international affairs. In the past,
sports organisations have stepped back from taking on Beijing.

Tennis fraternity welcomes WTA’s decision 

The move was welcomed by the world tennis
fraternity who have been advocating for Peng’s safety since she went missing.

“I applaud Steve Simon and the WTA
leadership for taking a strong stand on defending human rights in China and
around the world,” US tennis legend Billie Jean King said in a tweet. “The WTA
is on the right side of history in supporting our players. This is another
reason why women’s tennis is the leader in women’s sports,” she added.

World No. 1 men’s tennis player Novak
Djokovic also backed WTA for taking the action against China.

“We don’t have enough information and I
think it’s a very bold, very courageous stance from WTA,” he told reporters.

Martina Navratilova said it was a “brave
stance”, calling out for action from the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
“Now – what say you, IOC ?!?” she tweeted. “IOC – so far I can barely hear
you!!!”

Early last month, 35-year-old Peng, a
former doubles world No. 1, took to China’s Twitter equivalent, Weibo, to
accuse 75-year-old Zhang Gaoli, a member of all-powerful Chinese Communist
Party (CCP), of sexual harassment. Her post was quickly deleted by the Chinese
authority, and since then Peng disappeared from public for more than two weeks
as the WTA and colleagues said they were unable to reach her.

On 17 November, China’s state-owned
English-language news channel CGTN in a tweet alleged that Peng had written to
Simon and reported that she had been “resting at home and everything is fine”.
In the post, Peng also allegedly said that the news in Simon’s previous
release, including the allegations of sexual assault, “is not true”.