Peng Shuai’s disappearance has raised eyebrows all over the tennis world and even the top stars have shown that they are worried for the former Chinese player.
The women’s professional tennis tour has taken a big step regarding the future tournaments to be held in China. They have suspended all the tournaments in China amid “serious doubts” about the safety of Chinese player Peng Shuai.
This move will cost the Women’s Tennis Association millions of dollars but WTA chair and CEO Steve Simon said the move has his full backing and support.
A statement released by WTA read:
“I am announcing the immediate suspension of all WTA tournaments in China, including Hong Kong. In good conscience, I don’t 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.”
The WTA Tour last month had asked the Chinese government to investigate allegations of sexual assault made by a former tennis player Peng Shuai against a former Chinese vice premier.
History behind Peng Shuai
The disappearance of the Chinese tennis star is as shocking as it gets. Last month, a former tennis star accused Zhang Gaoli, a former high-ranking Chinese government official, of sexual assault.
Peng wrote, in a lengthy social media post, that Zhang had forced her to have sex despite repeated refusals. The post was taken down immediately from the website and there was no reference to that on the site from that point in time.
Peng hasn’t been active on Weibo since her post was removed, and has not been seen in public or responded to communication attempts from the WTA.
There was a video that was leaked to the public via Twitter last month that the tennis star was seen in public attending an event but the authentication of the video is still unknown.
There was another report that the former doubles champion had sent an email to the WTA chief and since then it has raised more eyebrows about her whereabouts.
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