Following Peng Shuai’s demise in 2021, the WTA announced that it would no longer hold tournaments in China. Now, the organization reveals that she will return to the People’s Republic of China in September.
The women’s tennis circuit will return to China in September, after more than a year of absence, due to the case of Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, the WTA announced Thursday.
The organization decided in December 2021 to stop holding tournaments in China, in response to the disappearance of Peng Shuai for several weeks, after the player -who even became champion of Wimbledon and Roland Garros in the couples variant- accused a former Chinese vice premier of sexual abuse. abuse.
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“The WTA lifts the suspension of organizing tournaments in China and the competitions will resume from September” in that Asian country, the association said, despite acknowledging that the tennis player’s situation “has not changed”.
In early November 2021, the 37-year-old former world number one partner accused Zhang Gaoli of forcing her to have sex, during a relationship that lasted several years, in a post on the Chinese social network Weibo.
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After these accusations, the tennis player was missing for several weeks, which caused great concern at the international level, until the president of the International Olympic Committee managed to speak with Peng Shuai, by videoconference.
The WTA decided, on December 1, suspend the tournaments held in China, due to censorship and the uncertainties surrounding the casedecision that was also followed by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) a few days later.
After the first accusations against the former Chinese vice-prime minister, Peng Shuai saw later, in December, denying sexual abuse, saying that it was a misunderstanding, only after the women’s circuit was suspended from holding tournaments in China.
Ask the world of tennis (but not only): where is Peng Shuai, the tennis player who accused a top Chinese professional of sexual abuse?
Source: Observadora
