{"id":161776,"date":"2021-11-18T05:48:16","date_gmt":"2021-11-18T06:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=161776"},"modified":"2021-11-18T10:04:30","modified_gmt":"2021-11-18T10:04:30","slug":"china-issued-ultimatum-over-missing-tennis-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=161776","title":{"rendered":"China issued ultimatum over missing tennis star"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Women&#x27;s Tennis Association (WTA) has threatened to pull all tournaments from China if missing star Peng Shuai is not found.<\/p>\n<p>Peng has been unable to be contacted since taking to social media on November 2 to accuse a former Communist Party official of sexual assault against her.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday morning there was a troubling update when a <a href=\"https:\/\/wwos.nine.com.au\/tennis\/peng-shuai-statement-issued-through-chinese-state-media-about-safety\/8a88a2dc-44ec-4ba0-913f-b8a48e2f1ce3\" title=\"statement was released from China, allegedly from Peng\" target=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">statement was released from China, allegedly written by Peng<\/a> and claiming she was merely &quot;resting at home&quot;.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/wwos.nine.com.au\/motorsport\/f1-2021-red-bull-mercedes-battle-helmut-marko-write-off-titles\/2c841789-78ef-4ea6-8902-70b99b37ce3c\"><strong>Mercedes&#x27; &#x27;potent weapon&#x27; Red Bull advisor fears most<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Soon after that rather bizarre message was released, WTA chairman Steve Simon issued his own statement questioning it.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The WTA and the rest of the world need independent and verifiable proof that she is safe. I have repeatedly tried to reach her via numerous forms of communication, to no avail,&quot; Simon said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p><img data-id=\"50378690-bb97-4819-bd7c-1515392aa941\" src=\"https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/50378690-bb97-4819-bd7c-1515392aa941\" alt=\"\" data-width=\"3793\" data-height=\"2528\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&quot;I have a hard time believing that Peng Shuai actually wrote the email we received.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Now, Simon has issued an ultimatum to China in a desperate bid to ensure the safety of the two-time Grand Slam doubles champion.<\/p>\n<p>He says the WTA will pull all tournaments from the country &#8211; of which there are 10 events scheduled next year &#8211; if Peng is not found.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/wwos.nine.com.au\/news\/tim-tszyu-v-takeshi-inoue-boxing-kostya-tszyu-wants-title-defence-for-son-tim-in-russia\/3414104f-e0fd-4084-90d2-832515d61edf\"><strong>Tim Tszyu calls on dad to get organising if he wants title defence in Russia<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/wwos.nine.com.au\/cricket\/alex-hales-denies-azeem-rafiq-allegations-he-gave-his-dog-a-racist-name\/4caa6adf-c9ef-4429-b0bf-b0d9064a1e5a\" title=\"\" target=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Former english cricketer denies he gave dog racist name<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&quot;If at the end of the day we don&#x27;t see the appropriate results from this, we would be prepared to take that step and not operate our business in China, if that&#x27;s what it came to,&quot; Simon said.<\/p>\n<p>Multiple tennis superstars have <a href=\"https:\/\/wwos.nine.com.au\/tennis\/naomi-osaka-tweets-where-is-peng-shuai-as-chinese-tennis-player-remains-missing\/6ce0d4c6-2b5b-4e50-8a31-471765910205\" title=\"publicly aired their concerns over Peng&#x27;s disappearance\" target=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">publicly aired their concerns over Peng&#x27;s disappearance<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/login.nine.com.au\/login?client_id=wwos&amp;redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwwos.nine.com.au&amp;newsletter=true\" title=\"clicking here!\"><em><strong>clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>The Women&#x27;s Tennis Association (WTA) has threatened to pull all tournaments from China if missing star Peng Shuai is not found. Peng has been unable <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=161776\" title=\"China issued ultimatum over missing tennis star\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161776"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=161776"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161778,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161776\/revisions\/161778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=161776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=161776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=161776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}