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.
