The power of money has won out again as the game’s ruling body has decided to depart from its previous principled approach
As recently as the beginning of March, the conditions set forth by the Women’s Tennis Association for a return to China were piercingly clear: the Tour would not stage any further tournaments in the country until the WTA was able to directly contact Peng Shuai and a transparent investigation was conducted into her claims of sexual assault against the former Chinese vice-premier, Zhang Gaoli.
Steve Simon, the WTA’s chief executive, often divides opinion but in a difficult period for the organisation, his backbone and the consistency of his message in response to Peng’s Weibo post in November 2021 had received plaudits.