WTA chief says women’s tennis will continue to boycott China amid Peng Shuai scandal

Women’s tennis will continue to boycott China until there is a resolution to the Peng Shuai scandal, contrary to hints that they may return there next year.

Steve Simon, Chief Executive of the WTA Tour, has emphasised that they will not be ditching their principles and returning to what has become one of its key markets for tournaments.

A press release earlier this week seemingly suggested that the year-end finals would be held there in 2023, after the venue was announced for Fort Worth in Texas at the end of this season.

Using the phrase ‘with the event thereafter due to return to Shenzhen, China’, was widely interpreted as meaning that the tour was quietly dropping its stance.

However, Simon insists this will not be the case until there is more transparent information that former Wimbledon doubles champion Peng Shuai is living freely and safely.

Her whereabouts and living conditions have been the subject of mystery, ever since she alleged in November last year that former Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli sexually assaulted her three years previously.

‘The WTA continues to work towards a resolution in China and are hopeful we will be in a position to operate events in the region in 2023 and beyond, but we will not compromise our founding principles in order to do so,’ Simon told Sportsmail.

WTA chief Steve Simon has said the tour will continue to boycott China until they know Shuai is living freely and safely

‘Peng Shuai took a bold step in publicly coming forth with the accusation that she was sexually assaulted by a senior Chinese government leader.

‘As we would do with any of our players globally, we have called for a formal investigation into the allegations by the appropriate authorities and an opportunity for the WTA to meet with Peng – privately – to discuss her situation. We continue to hold firm on our position and our thoughts remain with her.’

French player Alize Cornet is credited with sparking the movement to publicise the plight of her Chinese locker room colleague when she used her social media to create the hashtag WhereIsPengShuai?

That followed the player’s post on Weibo making the allegation that the assault happened in the midst of an affair that the two were having.

Alize Cornet looked to make sure that Shuai was not forgotten by getting the hashtag WhereIsPengShuai trending on Twitter

There have been some seemingly stage-managed appearances made by her in the wake of that, but the WTA has struggled to establish any independent contact.

While severe Covid restrictions have made it impossible to stage tournaments there in the past three years, in 2019 there were ten main tour WTA events in China, making it a hugely important country for women’s tennis.

The most lucrative of these was the year-end finals in Shenzhen, which that year paid out an all-time record £3.77 million winner’s purse to then champion Ash Barty.

With the expectation of China opening up after the pandemic, the whole issue around Peng Shuai and tennis will have to be confronted in the near future.