Do tennis authorities really want to get angry with China?

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Like in a bad spy movie, the strings are way too thick to take a bait. On Wednesday evening, while the entire planet worried about what had happened to Peng Shuai, the former double-reach world number 1 missing since November 2 after accusing former Deputy Prime Minister Zhang Gaoli of rape on the Chinese social network Weibo, the state channel CGTN finally gave its news.

Finally, in her own way … By posting a screenshot of an email that the player would have written of her own free will and sent directly to the WTA and in which she explains that we are chickweed for nothing. The tone is light, the content too. See instead: “Hello everyone (…). The information posted on the WTA website is false, including the accusations of sexual assault. I have not disappeared, I am not in danger. I’m just resting at home, everything is fine. Thanks again for hearing from me. “All that was needed was a” kisses les loulous “to complete what looks damn like a rude pirouette of the Chinese state to divert the eyes of the curious.

Asked by 20 minutes from Hong Kong, where he lives, just a few hours before the publication of this so-called email from Peng Shuai, Romain Deffet, his former coach, was surprised that the player did not speak out publicly to end the gossip. “I hope all is well, I want to convince myself that all is well, but I am waiting for her to speak herself to be sure,” he confided to us, worried. Not sure that the screenshot reassured him much. The WTA boss doesn’t buy the merchandise either:

“The press release published today [mercredi] by Chinese official media regarding Peng Shuai only increases my concern for his safety and whereabouts, Steve Simon said in the wake of CGTN’s tweet. I find it hard to believe that Peng Shuai actually wrote down the email we received and that she could mean the words attributed to it. “

A surprisingly strong position on the part of the WTA, which had not seemed to take the measure of the gravity of the situation so far. How else to explain, if not, that it took twelve days to officially react to the disappearance of her player? “Somehow, we have the impression that they were a little forced to do it, in particular because of the media pressure and that of the social networks”, notes Carole Gomez, director of research in geopolitics of sport at the IRIS.

Indeed, it has been a while since the hashtag #WhereIsPengShuai was in trending topic on Twitter when the WTA decided to get out of the woods. “And again, it was a very diplomatic position: the press release of November 14 simply recalled that the investigation must be conducted in a transparent manner, that it must be completed. These are fairly generic sentences, we never go into details. “

China, the new Eldorado of women’s tennis

How then to understand this reluctance of the WTA? For the French coach Nathalie Tauziat, no need to look very far, “the body has too important financial interests with China to be too offensive against it. For more than a decade, in fact, Asia in general and China in particular have become the favorite playground of women’s tennis. His Eldorado you could say. Having no financial reserve of their own and fearing that its European partners will end up putting all their marbles on the boys, the WTA and its former boss Stacey Allaster have made China their new priority market, materializing this with the construction of the third headquarters social of the WTA in Beijing, in 2008.

You only have to see with what fervor she spoke of the Chinese, during a forum organized in 2015 in Canada, to understand all the love she has for her investors with full pockets: “When they come to a grand slam tournament, they say “Oh look at this new stadium, look at this new roof, we need the same”. And a year later when I go back there, they built it! (laughs) ”.

As a result, today there are no less than eleven women’s tournaments taking place in the lands of Confucius. After having dealt with Singapore between 2014 and 2019, the WTA has just signed a juicy contract for the end-of-year Masters to take up residence in Shenzhen for the next ten years. By Steve Simon’s own admission, this deal is “by far the most important and the most significant signed by the WTA in 45 years”.

Better still, with $ 14 million in prize money (including 5 for the only winner), the Shenzhen Masters has become the most lucrative event in the history of tennis, men and women alike, proof that in terms of resources financial, China never does things by halves. Today, the Asian market represents neither more nor less than half of the revenues of the instance. It is therefore difficult to bite the hand that feeds you.

Bad publicity before the Olympics

All the more so today, with the shortfall caused by the cancellation of all tournaments in Asia over the past 18 months. Asked by Tennis Magazine last September, another WTA official Micky Lawler readily admitted that this had “serious consequences” for the cases of the instance. “China represents a great opportunity for the WTA and this choice [de Shenzhen pour le Masters] has enabled us to take great strides forward. Please name a person who would have said no to China, ”he thundered pragmatically.

Since Wednesday’s email, the tone has changed. Will Steve Simon dare to go so far as to put his threats to execution, he who said a few days ago that the WTA would not make “any compromise” and could “take decisions” against China if it does not? not quickly hear from Peng Shuai? “I hope so,” said former tennis player Arnaud Di Pasquale, a connoisseur of the mysteries of the professional circuit. It may be utopian to believe in it, but I would rather live in this utopia than to imagine that money has definitely taken precedence over Human Rights. China has invested a lot in the WTA but here we are dealing with people, we have to get out of the business dimension. We talk about things that are very, too, serious, for us to be silent. “

For Carole Gomez, the scale that this affair has taken could be such as to influence Beijing. “I am not sure that the Chinese regime thought that this affair would take on such a scale and last as long, it is an element to be taken into account in the continuation of this story. All the more so with the approaching Winter Olympics and the potential diplomatic boycott of the United States, all of this is putting China under pressure. Even if, for the moment, it doesn’t look like it looks from here.


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