WASHINGTON — 

The Women's Tennis Association (WTA), the governing body of the world's women's professional tennis competition, issued a statement on Wednesday (January 4), emphasizing that when the international women's professional tennis competition will return to China depends on when the sexual assault case of the famous Chinese female tennis player Peng Shuai will be released. be resolved.

Reuters quoted the WTA as saying that the agency has not had a face-to-face meeting with Peng Shuai so far.

"There has been no change in the WTA's position on the return to China, we have only confirmed our schedule ahead of the US Open in 2023," the WTA said in a statement.
The 2023 provisional schedule announced by the WTA last year only scheduled the competition until September this year, and there was no clear statement on whether any competitions would be held in China.

The 37-year-old Peng Shuai was a doubles champion at Wimbledon and French Open. On November 2, 2021, she posted on Weibo, disclosing her years of relationship with Zhang Gaoli, a former member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and former Vice Premier of the State Council, in her seventies, and her experience of being forced to have sexual relations.

Peng Shuai's groundbreaking post was quickly deleted from Chinese social media and the Internet, and Peng Shuai himself disappeared from public view. She has never been abroad again, except for a few appearances on official occasions during the Beijing Winter Olympics. Zhang Gaoli does not seem to have been investigated or punished for this. When the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing last October, Zhang Gaoli was still sitting firmly on the rostrum.

However, out of concern for Peng Shuai's safety, the WTA immediately announced the suspension of all events in China after the incident.


"The resumption of competition (in China) will require addressing the issue of Peng Shuai. It is a brave act for her to publicly accuse a senior Chinese government leader of sexually assaulting him," the WTA's latest statement said. "As we do with any other athlete around the world, we call on the appropriate authorities to conduct a formal investigation into the allegations, while at the same time giving the WTA the opportunity to meet with Peng Shuai privately to discuss her situation.

" Safe, comfortable news, but haven't had a chance to meet her privately yet.


"We remain steadfast in our position and Peng Shuai remains in our thoughts," the WTA statement said. "The WTA continues to work hard to resolve the issue."

"Although we have always expressed our desire to re-host WTA events (in China), we will not make concessions on issues related to our founding principles for this purpose," the WTA statement added.

The WTA has lost hundreds of millions of dollars since suspending events in China over Peng Shuai's sexual assault case.

The International Men's Professional Tennis Association (ATW) has also suspended all competitions in China since July last year, but the suspension has no direct relationship with Peng Shuai, but because of the seriousness of the new crown epidemic in China at that time and later, and the resulting blockade. Control measures are too stringent.