Tennis players sheathed rackets – Sport – Kommersant

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) has announced the reversal of its decision to suspend tournaments in China, made 16 months ago in connection with the so-called case of Peng Shuai, the former world number one in doubles, who accused the former vice premier on November 2, 2021 State Councilor Zhang Gaoli in sexual assault. The WTA statement admits that the goals that were pursued a year and a half ago by its leadership “cannot be fully achieved.” At the same time, the financial condition of the organization does not allow it to lose the Chinese market segment, without which the further commercial progress of professional women’s tennis will be extremely difficult.

WTA statement about the resumption of the upcoming autumn of women’s professional tennis tournaments in China published on its official website, despite the fact that the schedule for the final third of this season has not yet been formed.

Recallthat the decision to suspend cooperation with China was made by the leadership of the WTA in early December 2021 in connection with the so-called Peng Shuai case. A month earlier, this well-known athlete, who at one time headed the world pairs rating, accused the former Vice Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China Zhang Gaoli of sexual violence, and then disappeared from the information space and stopped communicating. Later, Peng Shuai actually disavowed her own statements.

In February 2022 she met at lunch with the President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, and through an interpreter, she gave an interview to the well-known French publication L`Equipe, answering questions agreed with the Chinese side. At that time, the position of the WTA has not changed. Considering that the actions of the tennis player are controlled by the Chinese authorities, the organization insisted on an independent investigation.

The WTA openly admitted that, despite all the efforts it has made over the past 16 months, it has not been able to fundamentally change the situation in this matter.

“We couldn’t get everything we wanted. But we have been in touch with people close to Peng Shuai, and we are sure that she lives safely with her family in Beijing. We have also received reassurances that WTA players and staff will be safe while in China,” the organization said in a recent press release. Therefore, “in September of this year, WTA tournaments in China will resume.”

Explaining his current position in an interview The New York Times, WTA Chairman and CEO Steve Simon notes that the goals set earlier are simply “impossible to fully achieve”, and “it does not seem to make sense to continue the old strategy, a different approach is needed here.” Simon also claims that as a result of a survey among tennis players, it turned out that some of them do not support the idea of ​​​​returning to China, but the majority were in favor of this decision.

However, it should be borne in mind that the former position of the WTA, which looked like a principled one, was still largely symbolic, not substantive. Indeed, since the spring of 2020, for three years, major international sports competitions in China, with the exception of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, have been canceled due to the coronavirus.

Now that China has opened up to world sports, the WTA has reversed itself. And this is by and large not surprising.

Recall that in 2019, China hosted 9 of the 54 WTA Tour tournaments, which played out a total of more than $30.5 million in prize money, including the final competition in Shenzhen with a record prize pool of $14 million. In the last two seasons, the organization WTA Finals had problems, and its prize fund had to be reduced by almost three times, to $5 million. Moreover, if in the Mexican Guadalajara in 2021 the tournament at least aroused great spectator interest, then last season in the American Fort Worth (Texas) the stands at several matches were almost empty.

The importance of the Chinese segment of the tennis market is indirectly confirmed by the fact that the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), which verbally supported the WTA in its efforts to investigate the Peng Shuai case, did not announce the suspension of its tournaments in China for a year and a half, guided by scheduling solely on the position of the Chinese authorities on the coronavirus.

This year, four tournaments are scheduled in the ATP calendar in China – in Chengdu and Zhuhai (category 250), Beijing (500) and Shanghai (Masters 1000). The WTA, according to Simon, intends to hold regular competitions of its tour in Zhengzhou, Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanchang, Hong Kong, Wuhan, as well as two final tournaments – a secondary one in Zhuhai and the main one in Shenzhen, moreover, a contract with this city, signed at the time for ten years, apparently, will now be extended until 2031.

According to a member of the Board of Directors of the International Tennis Federation, Alexei Selivanenko, in the current situation, the decision of the WTA looks logical and benefits tennis as a global sport. “With the end of this story and the return of the WTA to China, we can say that tennis, after several difficult years, has returned to the world stage in full,” he said.

Evgeny Fedyakov