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      The Mental Health of Tennis Players Is No Longer in the Shadows

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      The sport is very stressful, and many professionals had to often manage their anxiety alone. Now the tours provide help.Robin Soderling was at the peak of his prowess when the walls started crumbling.In 2009, when Soderling was just 24, he stunned the four-time defending champion Rafael Nadal en route to the final of the French Open.Soderling reached the final again in 2010, losing to Nadal. By the end of the season, Soderling was ranked No. 4 in the world.Eight months later, he played his final match on the ATP Tour.“I always felt like I was under pressure,” Soderling, now 37, said on a video call from his home near Stockholm. “The better I became, the worse it got. Basically, every match I played I was the favorite. When I won, it was more of a relief than happy. When I lost, it was a disaster. Losing a tennis match made me feel like a terrible person.”When anxiety and panic attacks forced Robin Soderling of Sweden out of competition a decade ago, such issues weren’t talked about, he said. “There was such a big stigma.”Oscar Del Pozo/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesExpectations were high as soon as he had success as a junior. But by the time he was 26, Soderling was done, having experienced anxiety and panic attacks as well as debilitating mononucleosis.“My entire immune system was bad because of the mental stress I put on myself,” he said. “Even on my rest days I was never switched off. Then my body just tipped over. I went from being able to play a five-set match on clay to not being able to walk up the stairs. But I couldn’t really talk to many people about it because there was such a big stigma.”Sports psychologists are now a regular presence on the Women’s Tennis Association and ATP Tours. And almost no one is afraid to talk about it. At last year’s WTA Finals, most of the eight top singles players spoke freely about receiving counseling for mental health issues.“I’ve been working with a psychologist for years,” said Maria Sakkari, a semifinalist at the French and United States Opens in 2021. “I invested a lot in that. It’s probably the best gift I’ve ever done for myself.”Because tennis is an individual sport, most players are on their own with limited support networks. They travel for 11 months of the year and almost everyone regularly loses.“Tennis is one of the toughest sports because there are constant changes that sports with a consistent schedule don’t have,” said Danielle Collins, a top 30 player. “We never know what time we’re going to play. We travel from city to city each week on different continents, with different cultures, even different foods. We even play with different tennis balls. And we lose every week unless you win the tournament. That’s something that you have to adjust to.”Last October, on World Mental Health Day, Iga Swiatek, the 2020 French Open champion, announced she was donating $50,000 in prize money to a mental-health organization. She is open about the value of having the psychologist Daria Abramowicz as a member of her traveling staff. Venus Williams has partnered with the WTA to donate $2 million to BetterHelp, an online therapy site, to provide free service.Sports psychology and mental wellness are not new concepts. Ivan Lendl hired the therapist Alexis Castorri in 1985 to help him after he had lost three straight U.S. Open finals. He went on to win the next three. But only recently have players been so open about seeking counseling.Mardy Fish, the former touring pro and captain of the United States Davis Cup team, opened the discussion when he said he had panic attacks before his fourth-round match against Roger Federer at the 2012 U.S. Open. Fish withdrew from that match and was subsequently diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. He shed light on his journey in a Netflix documentary.Iga Swiatek of Poland, who won the French Open in 2020, has a psychologist on her traveling staff.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesNaomi Osaka made headlines last May when she dropped out of the French Open, citing mental health concerns. She lost in the third round at the U.S. Open in September, and just returned to the tour in Australia this month.Jim Loehr, a clinical psychologist, has been practicing since the 1970s and founded the Center for Athletic Excellence in Denver. He has seen the field evolve.“Back then, people were very quiet about seeing anyone who could help their game mentally,” said Loehr, who is also a co-founder of the Human Performance Institute. “And we couldn’t talk about it either because our work is confidential. Now, everyone seems to have a sports psychologist.“That makes perfect sense,” he said. “Athletes need a team around them in order to ignite extraordinary performances. A coach is there for biomechanical expertise in stroke production. Then there are physios and massage therapists to facilitate healing and trainers, nutritionists, sports psychologists, even spiritual advisers. The body is pretty complicated, and it works best when all parts are integrated. The healthier and happier you are, the more you light it up on the court.”The WTA and the ATP have also taken note of the importance of well-being. The ATP has teamed with Sporting Chance, a British mental health organization. ATP players can call counselors and therapists 24 hours a day, seven days a week.“We have a hand-in-hand collaboration that makes it feel like an in-house service,” said Ross Hutchins, a former tour player and the ATP’s chief tour officer. “The goal is to make players more open to talking about their issues in a more comfortable manner. They may not want to chitchat about it the way they would with physical injuries, but we want to make it OK for them to feel any way they do.”Maria Sakkari, a semifinalist at the French and United States Opens in 2021, said she has long worked with a psychologist. “It’s probably the best gift I’ve ever done for myself.”Hector Vivas/Getty Images The WTA, which has offered mental health services for more than 20 years, recently began a more aggressive approach by adding four mental health care providers, one of whom is at tournaments year-round. Services include strategies for managing the mental and emotional challenges of match play, handling finances, and transitioning to life after tennis.“Our job is to help the athletes be their best outside of the court,” said Becky Ahlgren Bedics, the WTA’s vice president for mental health and wellness. “We don’t touch the X’s and O’s. We’re part of the holistic development. We are there to help with the pebble in your shoe during a run. We say, ‘Let’s stop and take the pebble out before it gets to be a bigger problem.’”The major championships are on board as well. At the Australian Open, which begins on Monday, a sports psychiatrist and psychologist are available to players. So are health and well-being experts. There are quiet rooms where players can relax and focus without distraction. There are even soundproof, private pods within the player areas.Victoria Azarenka, a two-time Australian Open champion, said the tours were taking the right steps.“I think the world is changing their perception of what mental health is,” she said. “We have that empathy when we see somebody who is physically hurt. Mental health is something that is invisible. But it is as strong, as powerful, as physical health.”Soderling doesn’t play much tennis anymore, other than with his two children. After multiple attempts at a comeback, each time followed by another panic attack, he stopped. Now he owns RS Sports, a sportswear company, and serves as captain of the Swedish Davis Cup team. He considers himself healed and will help anyone who asks.“As an athlete we’re treated to the best medical care you could have if you have a knee or a wrist injury,” Soderling said. “But it’s taken a long time to work with the mental aspect. It’s a shame it’s called mental health because it was not only in my head. My whole body was affected.“I’m glad to see there’s a better understanding of mental health today,” he added. “But it’s sad that it had to happen to so many people before it was taken seriously.” More

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      Putting Principles Before Profits, Steve Simon Takes a Stand

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      The WTA chief has spent years in tennis working quietly to put players first. Suspending tournaments in China over the treatment of star Peng Shuai has made him the most talked-about leader in sports.Guadalajara, Mexico, gave a party for women’s tennis last month, and when it ended, with Garbiñe Muguruza winning the WTA Finals, the season’s last tournament, confetti fell through the air and a mariachi band turned the Akron Tennis Stadium into a fiesta.In the middle of it, Steve Simon, the bespectacled chairman and chief executive of the WTA Tour, stood quietly and unsmiling in a blue business suit with his hands clasped. He shared the occasional quiet word with Chris Evert and Billie Jean King, or one of the local officials he had helped persuade into holding the event on short notice, after the regular host, Shenzhen, China, pulled out because of the pandemic.Simon had plenty else on his mind. As the tournament and closing celebration unfolded, a geopolitical crisis with women’s tennis at its center had occupied much of his time and he was leading the tour down an uncertain path.On Nov. 2, the Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai accused Zhang Gaoli, a former vice premier of China, of sexually assaulting her in social media posts that were quickly deleted.The Chinese government removed all mentions of Peng’s accusation, and coverage of Peng from news media outside China has been censored. She largely disappeared from public life, and Simon has been unable to communicate with her despite repeated attempts.On Nov. 13, Simon went public with his frustration, demanding that he and the WTA be able to speak with Peng independently and that Chinese officials conduct a transparent investigation into her allegations. If they did not comply, Simon said, the WTA would consider removing its nine tournaments from China, including the Tour Finals, moves that could cost women’s tennis tens and perhaps hundreds, of millions of dollars over the next decade.On Wednesday, Simon followed through on his threat, announcing that after weeks of failed attempts to communicate with Peng, and no sign of an investigation or evidence that Peng can speak freely, the WTA was immediately suspending all of its tournaments in China. Simon’s stridency, in contrast to other international sports leagues and organizations that do business in China, has turned Simon, a mild-mannered former tournament director who prefers to operate in the background and leave the spotlight to his star players, into the most talked-about leader in sports.“This is not where I wanted to end up,” Simon said in an interview Wednesday night, speaking about the WTA Tour, but also, in a sense, about himself.Peng Shuai competing at the Australian Open in 2017.Clive Brunskill/Getty Images“I don’t want this to be about me,” he added. “Nothing prepared me for it, other than just trying to do what is right and communicating that with the players.”Simon’s refusal to accept China’s authoritarian stance on human rights once it directly affected one of his players stands in stark contrast to several high-profile leaders in sports who have repeatedly bent to the desires of the Chinese, including Adam Silver, the commissioner of the N.B.A., and Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee.Simon has been concerned about Peng’s physical safety but also believed, as did the members of his player council and others he communicates with regularly in a player chat group, that the silencing of Peng and her sexual assault allegation amounted to a direct attack on the principle of equality upon which the WTA was founded.“It’s now December and we’ve not seen any meaningful progress,” he said Wednesday night.Simon, a 66-year-old Southern California native, played tennis at Long Beach State University and mixed doubles at Wimbledon in 1981 alongside Lea Antonoplis. He has spent his adult life in tennis coaching, running the tennis program for Adidas, and organizing and eventually directing the BNP Paribas Open, a joint men’s and women’s event in Indian Wells, Calif., known as the fifth Grand Slam.All along, Simon was quietly gaining authority within tennis circles, even if few of the players knew him particularly well. He began serving on the board of the WTA in 2004.In 2009, he worked to get Stacey Allaster, then the president of the WTA, appointed as the next chief executive. Allaster said during a rough moment for her candidacy, she privately asked Simon if he might be a better fit to lead the organization.“Without a blink he turned to me and said, ‘No, we’re going to stay the course,’” Allaster said.Six years later, after Allaster decided to step down, the WTA board unanimously selected Simon to succeed her. He has since cultivated the support of the sport’s biggest stars of the present and past, including Serena Williams and King, the founder of the WTA, while maintaining his decades-long relationships with the tournament directors who were his initial base of support.“He’s a rarity in sports,” said John Tobias, a prominent tennis agent who represents Sloane Stephens, the 2017 U.S. Open women’s singles champion. “An executive who is always trying to put the focus on the tour and the players.”Before this month, Simon was best known for the work he performed behind the scenes, along with the former pro Charlie Pasarell and others, to bring Venus and Serena Williams back to Indian Wells after a 14-year absence. Serena Williams was ceaselessly booed by fans after her sister withdrew from a semifinal match between them. Williams believed that race had played a role in how fans treated her. She said at the time that Simon spent a long time listening to what she had to say on the matter and that played a major role in her decision to return.Understand the Disappearance of Peng ShuaiCard 1 of 5Where is Peng Shuai? More

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      WTA Suspends Tournaments in China Over Treatment of Peng Shuai

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      Steve Simon said Wednesday that the women’s tennis tour would not stage tournaments in China, including Hong Kong, because he has been unable to communicate with Peng despite repeated attempts.The women’s professional tennis tour announced Wednesday that it was immediately suspending all tournaments in China, including Hong Kong, in response to the disappearance from public life of the tennis star Peng Shuai after she accused a top Communist Party leader of sexual assault.With the move, the Women’s Tennis Association became the only major sports organization to push back against China’s increasingly authoritarian government. Women’s tennis officials made the decision after they were unable to speak directly with Peng after she accused Zhang Gaoli, a former vice premier of China, in social media posts that were quickly deleted.The Chinese government quickly removed all mentions of Peng’s accusation, and coverage of Peng from news media outside China has been censored. She has not been seen in public except in the company of government officials in more than two weeks.Peng, 35, a Grand Slam doubles champion and three-time Olympian, resurfaced late last month in a series of appearances with Chinese officials, including in a video conference with Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, which will bring the Winter Games to Beijing in February.“While we now know where Peng is, I have serious doubts that she is free, safe and not subject to censorship, coercion and intimidation,” Steve Simon, the chief executive of the Women’s Tennis Association, said in a statement.“If powerful people can suppress the voices of women and sweep allegations of sexual assault under the rug, then the basis on which the WTA was founded — equality for women — would suffer an immense setback,” he added. “I will not and cannot let that happen to the WTA and its players.”The WTA held its 2019 Tour Finals in Shenzhen, China.Aly Song/ReutersThe suspension comes just two months before the start of an Olympics that makes Beijing the first city to host both the summer and winter Games. The I.O.C. has not indicated that the Peng controversy would affect the Games, with Richard W. Pound, a Canadian lawyer and the organization’s longest-serving member, saying that the committee prefers “quiet and discreet diplomacy.”No other sports organization has followed the WTA’s lead.“We cannot walk away from issues related to sexual assault,” Simon told The Times in an interview Wednesday night. “If we do that we are telling the world that is OK and it’s not important. That is what this is about.”“It’s the right move and I’m so proud of the WTA for taking it,” Martina Navratilova, the former champion, said. “Now we are just going to have to see if the other sports, especially the ATP, will follow.”The governing body for the men’s tour, the Association of Tennis Professionals, asked for an investigation into Peng’s safety, but has not suggested it would boycott China. And on Tuesday, World Athletics, the governing body for track and field, affirmed that it would hold its relay championships in Guangzhou in 2023. The organization is led by Sebastian Coe, a leading member of the I.O.C.China is a vast market that has provided a huge opportunity for growth among sports organizations, including Premier League soccer, the National Basketball Association, and professional tennis and golf. Doing business in China has become both lucrative and complicated in recent years as the country’s government has cracked down on free speech and political protest. Its treatment of Muslim minorities has been deemed genocide by the United States and lawmakers in several nations.Michael Lynch, who led the sports marketing division for Visa during his 16-year tenure at the company, said he expected that tennis would not be the only sport to re-examine its business in China because of the treatment of Peng. “Let’s hope this is not considered a female problem,” Lynch said. “They are all athletes. It doesn’t matter sex or gender. If there is more pressure that needs to be applied, sports will support one another. What we saw with Black Lives Matter is this is about human rights and everyone is coming to the table and supporting each other.”Women’s tennis stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in the coming years by pulling out of China. The tour has a 10-year deal to hold its season-ending tournament in Shenzhen, where organizers committed to some $150 million in prize money and millions more on tennis development in the country. The organization also holds eight other tournaments in the country.“I don’t see how I can ask our athletes to compete there when Peng Shuai is not allowed to communicate freely and has seemingly been pressured to contradict her allegation of sexual assault,” Simon said. “Given the current state of affairs, I am also greatly concerned about the risks that all of our players and staff could face if we were to hold events in China in 2022.”Simon said that women’s tennis would not return to China until its officials could speak to Peng without government interference and a full investigation into her assault accusations could be conducted. “China’s leaders have left the WTA with no choice.”Peng accused Zhang, 75, of sexually assaulting her at his home three years ago. She also described having had an on-and-off consensual relationship with Zhang.Then she quickly dropped out of public life. As demands for an inquiry grew louder, China’s state-owned broadcaster released a message that it claimed was from Peng, recanting her accusations.“Hello everyone this is Peng Shuai,” it stated before calling her initial accusation of sexual assault untrue. “I’m not missing, nor am I unsafe. I’ve been resting at home and everything is fine. Thank you again for caring about me.”The message, which few believed was actually from Peng herself, only raised concerns further, as did additional photos and videos of her that began to appear — all from sources in China’s government-controlled media.Understand the Disappearance of Peng ShuaiCard 1 of 5Where is Peng Shuai? More

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      Do Sports Still Need China?

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      Global outrage, broken contracts and shifting politics could change the calculus for leagues and teams that once raced to do business in China.The rewards for international sports leagues and organizations are plain: lucrative broadcast deals, bountiful sponsorship opportunities, millions of new consumers.The risks are obvious, too: the compromising of values, the public relations nightmares, the general atmosphere of opacity.For years, they have surveyed the Chinese market, measured these factors and come up with the same basic math: that the benefits of doing business there outweighed the possible downsides. The N.B.A. might blunder into a humbling political crisis based on a single tweet, and rich contracts might vanish into thin air overnight, but China, the thinking went, was a potential gold mine. And for that reason leagues, teams, governing bodies and athletes contorted themselves for any chance to tap into it.But recent events may have changed that thinking for good, and raised a new question: Is doing business in China still worth it?The sports world received a hint last week of a changing dynamic when the WTA — one of many organizations that have worked aggressively over the last decade to establish a foothold in the Chinese market — threatened to stop doing business there altogether if the government failed to confirm the safety of Peng Shuai. Peng, a top women’s tennis player once hailed by state media as “our Chinese princess,” disappeared from public life recently after accusing a prominent former government official of sexual assault.The WTA’s threat was remarkable not only for its reasoning, but for its rarity.WTA Tour officials, fellow players and human rights groups spoke up for Peng Shuai after China tried to censor her accusations of sexual abuse.Demetrius Freeman for The New York TimesBut as China’s president, Xi Jinping, governs through an increasingly heavy-handed personal worldview, and as China’s aggressive approach to geopolitics and its record on human rights make the country, and those who do business there, a growing target for a chorus of critics and activists, sports leagues and organizations may soon be forced to re-evaluate their longstanding assumptions.That sort of direct confrontation is already taking place elsewhere: Lawmakers in the European Union recently called for stronger ties with Taiwan, an island China claims as its territory, only months after European officials blocked a landmark commercial agreement over human rights concerns and labeled China a “totalitarian threat.”For most sports organizations, the WTA’s position remains an outlier. Sports organizations with multimillion-dollar partnerships in China — whether the N.B.A., England’s Premier League, Formula 1 auto racing or the International Olympic Committee — have mostly brushed aside concerns.Some partners have acquiesced at times to China’s various demands. A few have issued humbling apologies. The I.O.C., in perhaps the most notable example, has seemed to go out of its way to avoid angering China, even as Peng, a former Olympian, went missing.But an evolving public opinion may get harder for sports organizations to ignore. A report this year from the Pew Research Center, for instance, found that 67 percent of Americans had negative feelings toward China, up from 46 percent in 2018. Similar shifts have occurred in other Western democracies.Mark Dreyer, a sports analyst for China Sports Insider, based in Beijing, said the WTA’s standoff with China represented an escalation in the “them or us” mentality that appeared to be forming between China and its Western rivals.The threat from the WTA, then, could serve as a sign of showdowns to come, in which case, Dreyer said, China could lose out.“Frankly, China is a big market, but the rest of the world is still bigger,” he said. “And if people have to choose, they’re not going to choose China.”To some experts, then, the WTA’s extraordinary decision to confront China head-on might actually signal a turning point, rather than an aberration.“The calculation is one part political, one part moral, one part economic,” said Simon Chadwick, a professor of international sports business at Emlyon Business School in Lyon, France. He said that the WTA’s dispute with China reflected the “red line” growing between the country and many of its Western counterparts, with the sides seeming more entrenched in diverging sociopolitical ideologies.Some sports organizations are deepening their ties to China. Formula 1, for example, just extended its contract for the Chinese Grand Prix, keeping the race in Shanghai through 2025.Greg Baker/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“I think we are rapidly heading toward the kind of terrain where organizations, businesses, and sponsors will be forced to choose one side or another,” Chadwick added.The WTA’s own about-face was stark. Only three years ago, the organization was heralding a deal that made Shenzhen, China, the new home of its tour finals for a decade starting in 2019, accepting promises of a new stadium and a whopping $14 million annual prize pool. In 2019, just before the pandemic, the WTA held nine tournaments in China.Fast forward to last week, when Steve Simon, the WTA’s chief executive, said in an interview with The New York Times that if China did not agree to an independent inquiry of Peng’s claims, that the tour would be willing to cease operations in the country.“There are too many decisions being made today that aren’t based on what is simply right and wrong,” Simon said. “And this is the right thing to do, 100 percent.”The language raised eyebrows around the sports world.“They are not the first ones to have had a run-in with China,” Zhe Ji, the director of Red Lantern, a sports marketing company that does work in China, said about the WTA. “But I haven’t seen anybody else come out with as strong a wording as that.”The run-ins have proliferated in only the last few years.The N.B.A., for instance, was seen as a pioneer when it played its first games in China in 2004, including a game featuring Yao Ming, the Chinese star for the Houston Rockets. The ensuing years brought prosperity for the league there, and relative peace. It was praised for its patient, culturally sensitive approach to building there. Then, in 2019, Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Rockets at the time, tweeted in support of pro-democracy protests taking place in Hong Kong, and in the blink of an eye a relationship that had developed over several years imploded.Merchandise for the Rockets — China’s favorite team in China’s favorite sports league — was removed from stores, and the team’s games were no longer broadcast on television. Fans took to Chinese social media to attack the league. Then, when the N.B.A. issued what was widely taken as an apology, it sparked an almost equally robust wave of criticism back home. (The N.B.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.)“The NBA should have anticipated the challenges of doing business in a country run by a repressive single party government, including by being prepared to stand in strong defense of the freedom of expression of its employees, players, and affiliates across the globe,” read a letter sent to the league by a bipartisan group of United States lawmakers.The N.B.A. saw its brand battered in China and at home after a team executive waded into Chinese politics on Twitter.Tyrone Siu/ReutersThe letter’s signees — a cross-party group that included Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, a Democrat, and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican — accused the N.B.A. of compromising American values and effectively supporting Chinese propaganda.“If you’re angering both sides, it means there is no middle ground, which I think was significant,” said Dreyer, the Beijing-based sports analyst.Like other observers, Dreyer suggested the WTA’s stance was potentially game-changing. But he noted, too, that it was possibly easier for the WTA to defy China than it had been for, say, the N.B.A., for two reasons.First, because the pandemic had already forced the WTA to cancel its events in China for the near future, the tour was not necessarily forfeiting big sums of money in the immediate term. (Severing ties with China permanently would of course require the WTA Tour to replace tens of millions of dollars in revenue and prize money.) Second, because China has essentially erased any mention of Peng and the ensuing international outcry from its news and social media, the WTA’s brand may not take much of a hit there. Many in China simply do not know about Peng, or the WTA’s response.“With the N.B.A., they were burning jerseys,” Dreyer said. “You don’t have that reaction against tennis.”To be sure, big sports leagues that have deep, longstanding interests in China, barring some extreme turn of events, will not exit the market any time soon. And some organizations are still going all-in.The I.O.C., which will stage the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing in February, has tuned out any and all calls from critics for the organization to make some statement about China’s human rights abuses, including the treatment of religious minorities in the country’s western regions.The Beijing Olympics marked the start of its 100-days-out countdown on Wednesday.Andrea Verdelli/Getty ImagesFormula 1 this month announced that it had signed a deal to continue the Chinese Grand Prix, an annual race in Shanghai, through 2025, and the Premier League appears to have patched over a crisis that began when a top player infuriated China by criticizing its human rights record.Some in the industry, though, have already noticed a change, a slight cooling, among other companies pondering business in the sports market there.“With increased political tension and the complications of doing business in China, I’ve seen more companies focus back on Europe and the U.S., where the reward may not be as large but the risk is much less,” said Lisa Delpy Neirotti, an international sports marketing consultant and director of the sports management master’s program at George Washington University.That dynamic has been vivid in European soccer, which had collectively seemed to view China as a sort of El Dorado five years ago, but now seems to be coming to terms with reality after a series of disappointments. In Italy, Inter Milan, one of that country’s most storied clubs, is in a tailspin after its Chinese owner, Suning, a consumer goods company, became engulfed in a major financial crisis. The team has been forced to sell player contracts to meet its payroll.In England, the Premier League remains in litigation with a broadcast partner that failed to pay up after signing a record-breaking television deal to broadcast games in China. A new partner is paying a fraction of the previous agreement, leaving some clubs disillusioned.Manchester City’s Bernardo Silva in Shanghai in 2019. The Premier League had to find a new television partner in China after a record-setting deal collapsed.Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Over the last five years there had been a perception in the West that China is there for the taking — there’s lots of money, economic growth is strong, a growing middle class, disposal income, and we can go feast on this,” Chadwick said. “What has happened for some sports organizations in the West is that they have not found China as lucrative as they imagined, and they have also found China incredibly difficult to do business with.”The difficulties appear to be deepening.Half a decade ago, the Chinese government, emboldened about sports after hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, announced plans to create an $800 billion domestic sports industry, the largest in the world. That captured the attention of Western sports organizations.What many organizations did not anticipate, though, were the peculiarities of the Chinese business landscape, the extent to which politics is woven through all aspects of China’s economy, and the growing spirit of nationalism under its increasingly autocratic president, Xi.“I absolutely think over the long term that major sporting events will be hesitant moving forward to schedule out in China right now,” said Thomas A. Baker III, a sports management professor at the University of Georgia who has done extensive work in China. “The China that welcomed the world in 2008 is not the same China that people are doing business with in 2021.”Tariq Panja More

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      Who, and Where, Is Chinese Tennis Star Peng Shuai?

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      A blackout within China on discussion of the tennis star’s #MeToo allegations has not been able to silence a global chorus of concern for her safety.A simple question has gripped the sports world and drawn the attention of the White House, United Nations and others:Where is Peng Shuai?The Chinese tennis star disappeared from public view for weeks this month after she accused a top Chinese leader of sexual assault, prompting a global chorus of concern for her safety. Then, this weekend, the editor of a Communist Party-controlled newspaper posted video clips that appear to show Ms. Peng eating at a restaurant and attending a tennis event in Beijing.A top official in women’s tennis, Steve Simon, said it was “positive” to see the videos, though he said he remained skeptical that Ms. Peng was making decisions freely. China’s authoritarian government has a long record of iron-fisted treatment of people who threaten to undermine public confidence in the party’s senior leaders.With only a few months to go before Beijing hosts the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, Ms. Peng’s case could become another point of tension in China’s increasingly fractious relationship with the wider world.Who Is Ms. Peng?Peng Shuai, 35 — her family name is pronounced “pung,” and the end of her given name rhymes with “why” — is a three-time Olympian whose tennis career began more than two decades ago.In February 2014, after winning the doubles crown at Wimbledon with Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan the year before, Ms. Peng rose to become a world No. 1 in doubles, the first Chinese player, male or female, to attain the top rank in either singles or doubles. She and Ms. Hsieh took the 2014 French Open doubles title as well.Her doubles career underwent a resurgence in 2016 and 2017. But in 2018, she was barred from professional play for six months, with a three-month suspension, after she was found to have tried to use “coercion” and financial incentives to change her Wimbledon doubles partner after the sign-in deadline. She has not competed professionally since early 2020.Why Did She Disappear?Late in the evening on Nov. 2, Ms. Peng posted a long note on the Chinese social platform Weibo that exploded across the Chinese internet.In the posting, she accused Zhang Gaoli, 75, a former vice premier, of inviting her to his home about three years ago and coercing her into sex. “That afternoon, I didn’t consent at first,” she wrote. “I was crying the entire time.”She and Mr. Zhang began a consensual, if conflicted, relationship after that, she wrote. Mr. Zhang had served from 2012 to 2017 on China’s top ruling body, the Politburo Standing Committee.Within minutes, censors scrubbed Ms. Peng’s account from the Chinese internet. A digital blackout on her accusations has been in place ever since.Women in China who come forward as victims of sexual assault and predation have long been met with censorship and pushback. But Ms. Peng’s account, which has not been corroborated, is the first to implicate such a high-level Communist Party leader, which is why the authorities may have been extra diligent in silencing all discussion of the matter, at one point even blocking online searches for the word “tennis.”How Has the World Responded?The censors might have succeeded had Mr. Simon, the head of the Women’s Tennis Association, not spoken out on Nov. 14, calling on Beijing to investigate Ms. Peng’s accusations and stop trying to bury her case.Confronting China has come with substantial consequences for other sports organizations. But Mr. Simon told CNN that the WTA was prepared to pull its business out of China over the matter.Fellow tennis luminaries — the list so far includes Naomi Osaka, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal and Billie Jean King — have been speaking out in support of Ms. Peng. The Spanish soccer star Gerard Piqué posted with the hashtag #WhereIsPengShuai to his 20 million Twitter followers.The Biden Administration and United Nations human rights office have joined the calls for Beijing to provide proof of Ms. Peng’s well-being.The International Olympic Committee initially said that it was satisfied with reports that she was safe, though it later suggested that it was engaging in “quiet diplomacy” to untangle the situation. In an interview with Reuters, the committee’s longest-serving member, Dick Pound, said he doubted the issue would lead to a cancellation of the Winter Games. But he also couldn’t rule it out, he said.“If that’s not resolved in a sensible way very soon it may spin out of control,” Mr. Pound told the news agency.On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal published an essay by Enes Kanter, a center for the Boston Celtics, in which he called for the Winter Games to be moved from Beijing. Mr. Kanter has been a vocal critic of the Chinese government, assailing its policies in Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan.The National Basketball Association’s streaming partner in China has pulled Celtics games from its platform in response.“All the gold medals in the world aren’t worth selling your values and your principles to the Chinese Communist Party,” Mr. Kanter wrote in The Journal.What Has China Said?Nothing. Not officially, at least.Instead, Chinese state-run news organizations and their employees have been the sole quasi-official voices from the country to weigh in. Notably, they are doing so on Twitter, which is blocked within China. Their messages appear to be aimed specifically at persuading the wider world.First, a Chinese state broadcaster posted an email on Twitter, written in English and attributed to Ms. Peng, that disavowed the assault accusation and said she was just “resting at home.” Mr. Simon dismissed the email as a crude fabrication and said it only deepened his concerns for the tennis star’s safety.Then, Hu Xijin, the editor in chief of the state-controlled newspaper Global Times, began sharing videos that appear to show Ms. Peng with his 450,000 Twitter followers.In Mr. Hu’s first Twitter remarks on the subject, he said he didn’t believe Ms. Peng was being punished “for the thing that people talked about,” declining even to state the nature of her accusations.On Saturday, Mr. Hu posted two video clips that he said he had “acquired.”In one clip, a man is speaking with a woman who appears to be Ms. Peng at a restaurant when he refers to tomorrow as Nov. 20. Another woman at the table corrects him, saying tomorrow is the 21st. Ms. Peng nods in agreement.The man appears to be Zhang Junhui, an executive with the China Open tennis tournament.On Sunday, Mr. Hu posted another clip, which he said had been shot by a Global Times employee, that shows Ms. Peng at the opening ceremony of a tennis event in Beijing. Zhang Junhui seems to be standing to Ms. Peng’s right.The China Open posted photos from the same event on its Weibo account on Sunday. The photos show Ms. Peng waving to the crowd and autographing tennis balls, although the post does not name her.Mr. Hu has not shared any of these videos on Weibo, where he has 24 million followers.In a statement, Mr. Simon of the WTA said the clips alone were “insufficient” to prove that Ms. Peng was not facing coercion.“Our relationship with China is at a crossroads,” he said. More

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      Peng Shuai Said to Be in Videos From China's State Media

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      The editor of a state-run newspaper on Saturday shared clips said to be of the Chinese tennis star on Twitter. But they are unverified, and the head of the WTA called them “insufficient.”Nearly two weeks after people across the world began asking “Where is Peng Shuai?,” two questionable videos surfaced Saturday on social media of a person who appears to be the Chinese tennis star at a restaurant.The videos were shared on Twitter by the editor of a state-run newspaper, but the seemingly unnatural conversation in one video and the unclear location and dates of both raised questions about Peng’s safety and whether she was appearing in the videos of her own free will. A third video, said to be of Peng at a tennis match in Beijing, was posted about 10 hours later, on Sunday.Peng, in a social media post this month, accused a former top government official of sexually assaulting her. After the allegation, the Chinese government removed almost all references of Peng on social media within the country, and Peng disappeared from public life. Her absence prompted outrage across the world, especially from top officials and stars in tennis.Steve Simon, the chief executive of the WTA, the women’s professional tennis tour, has particularly been strident, demanding verifiable proof that Peng is safe and can move about society as she pleases and that officials fully investigate her allegations. If that does not occur, Simon said the WTA would stop playing tennis tournaments in China.On Saturday, after the videos surfaced, Simon continued to express frustration with the inability to independently verify Peng’s well-being and said that the organization’s “relationship with China is at a crossroads.”“While it is positive to see her, it remains unclear if she is free and able to make decisions and take actions on her own, without coercion or external interference,” he said. “This video alone is insufficient.”Peng, 35, is the only Chinese tennis player to have attained a world No. 1 ranking, in women’s doubles, and she was once heralded by the Chinese government as a model athlete.The video clips were posted on the Twitter account of Hu Xijin, the chief editor of The Global Times, an influential Communist Party newspaper, who described them as showing Peng having dinner with her coach and friends on Saturday.He wrote that he had “acquired” the clips but offered no explanation of how, and the clips appeared staged to establish the date. In the first clip, the man said to be Peng’s coach is discussing plans with her and asks, “Isn’t tomorrow Nov. 20?” A woman sitting next to Peng corrects him and says it will be Nov. 21. He then repeats the date twice.In the second clip, a woman wearing a mask, presumably Peng, is shown walking into a restaurant. The camera pauses on a sign indicating the date of the last cleaning, a common sight in Chinese buildings since the SARS epidemic. But only the month, November, is visible; the date appears to be obscured.Hu posted a third video hours later, describing it as the opening ceremony of a teen tennis match final in Beijing on Sunday to which Peng “showed up.”On Friday, a journalist for another Chinese media entity released pictures said to be of Peng in what appeared to be a bedroom, surrounded by stuffed animals. In those photos, Peng appeared younger than she did in more recent images of her and there was nothing to verify when they had been taken.Also on Friday, Simon wrote to China’s ambassador to the United States to reiterate his complaints and his threat to remove the nine tournaments the WTA holds in China, including the prestigious WTA Finals in Shenzhen. All of the tournaments in China this year were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. The WTA Finals were completed on Wednesday in Guadalajara, Mexico.If Peng is not able to speak freely, Simon wrote, “we have grave concerns that any of our players will be safe in China.”The men’s tennis tour has voiced its concern but has yet to threaten to pull its tournaments from China.The controversy surrounding Peng comes a little more than two months before the start of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, raising the specter of one of the world’s largest sporting events taking place in a country where a three-time Olympian tennis star is missing.The International Olympic Committee has said that it believes “quiet diplomacy” will provide the best chance for resolving the situation. On Friday, Dick Pound, an I.O.C. member, told Reuters that if the situation with Peng is “not resolved in a sensible way very soon, it may spin out of control.” He added: “Whether that escalates to a cessation of the Olympic Games, I doubt it. But you never know.”Simon has spent more than a week trying to establish personal contact with Peng through a series of phone numbers and other digital contacts but has not been able to speak with her.The videos on Saturday were the latest media released by a Chinese-controlled entity trying to establish Peng’s safety. Earlier this week, China’s state-owned broadcaster released a message supposedly from her.“Hello everyone this is Peng Shuai,” it read. It called the accusation of sexual assault, which was made just weeks ago, untrue. “I’m not missing, nor am I unsafe,” the message said. “I’ve been resting at home and everything is fine. Thank you again for caring about me.”Simon quickly denounced the release of the message.“I have a hard time believing that Peng Shuai actually wrote the email we received or believes what is being attributed to her,” he said.Peng has accused Zhang Gaoli, 75, a former vice premier of China, of sexually assaulting her at his home three years ago. In a post on her verified account on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, Peng wrote that the assault occurred after Zhang invited her to play tennis at his home. “I was so scared that afternoon,” she said. “I never gave consent, crying the entire time.”She also described having had an on-and-off consensual relationship with Zhang.Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said on Friday that the Biden administration was paying close attention to the situation and was “deeply concerned.” She called on the Chinese government to provide “independent, verifiable proof” of Peng’s whereabouts.In recent days, several notable names in tennis have joined the chorus of demanding proof that Peng is safe.“We need to see her in a live video holding up a newspaper from today or better yet, hitting balls,” Patrick McEnroe, the former player and ESPN commentator, said in an interview on Friday. McEnroe coached Peng earlier in her career in World Team Tennis.“If none of that happens, and people I talk to say if the Chinese really don’t care about what we think, and we never hear from Peng or have a clue, the only real recourse left is for professional tennis to pull all its tournaments from China,” he said.Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Simona Halep and Coco Gauff are among the current women’s players who have posted on social media about their concern for Peng. Novak Djokovic shared a statement from the Professional Tennis Players Association, of which he is a co-founder.Martina Navratilova, the former champion who defected from Czechoslovakia in 1975 to escape the communist government, is also speaking out about Peng.“I don’t believe a word they are saying,” Navratilova said of the Chinese government in an interview on Saturday. “There is a lot of subterfuge going on here.” More

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      Where Is Peng Shuai? The Question the I.O.C. Is Too Weak To Ask.

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      Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai went missing after publicly accusing a former government official of sexual assault. Tennis stars, led by Naomi Osaka, and the WTA have all asked #whereispengshuai?Where is Peng Shuai?That’s the question the International Olympic Committee and its president, Thomas Bach, should be shouting right now — loud, demanding, and aimed squarely at the leadership in China, set to host the Beijing Games in February. But instead of firm demands, we’re hearing not much more than faint, servile whispers from Olympic leadership.Peng, 35, a Chinese tennis star and three-time Olympian, has been missing since Nov. 2, when she used social media to accuse Zhang Gaoli, 75, a former vice premier of China, of sexually assaulting her at his home three years ago. She also described having had an on-and-off consensual relationship with Zhang.Peng wrote that the assault occurred after Zhang invited her to play tennis at his home. “I was so scared that afternoon,” she noted. “I never gave consent, crying the entire time.”“I feel like a walking corpse,” she added.The message was quickly deleted from China’s government-controlled social media site.There have been no verifiable signs of Peng since — no videos or photographs to prove she is safe. Instead, all the outside world has seen is a stilted message, said to have been written by Peng and sent to the WTA, in response to its demand for an inquiry into her allegations. Peng’s supposed response, released by China’s state-owned broadcaster on Wednesday, immediately raised concerns.“Hello everyone this is Peng Shuai,” it read, before calling her accusation of sexual assault, made just weeks ago, untrue. “I’m not missing, nor am I unsafe. I’ve been resting at home and everything is fine. Thank you again for caring about me.”It reads like a message from a hostage, a natural concern given the Chinese government’s long history of using force and heavy-handed pressure to crush dissent and flatten those it deems guilty of going against the state.So, what has been the I.O.C.’s response to a potentially endangered Olympian? A neutered, obsequious statement.“We have seen the latest reports and are encouraged by assurances that she is safe,” read an official I.O.C. declaration on Thursday.What world of fantasy is the I.O.C. living in? Given China’s history, we can reasonably assume the latest missive supposedly written by Peng is a fraud. Peng dared to speak up with force and candor, but not the I.O.C., a Swiss-based organization with a history of cowing to dictators that goes back to Adolf Hitler and the 1936 Summer Games.After some criticism, the committee followed up with another statement, hinting its representatives were talking to the Chinese.“Experience shows that quiet diplomacy offers the best opportunity to find a solution for questions of such nature,” it said, offering no evidence of prior success. “This explains why the IOC will not comment any further at this stage.”Responding to a message purportedly written by Peng, the I.O.C. said in a statement, “We have seen the latest reports and are encouraged by assurances that she is safe.” Valery Gache/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBach and the wide cast of leadership at the I.O.C. typically use every chance possible to claim the Olympic mission stands for humanity’s highest ideals. They say all Olympic athletes are part of a family. Peng was among those ranks in 2008, 2012 and 2016. Once an Olympian, they say, always an Olympian.That’s an admirable idea, but it gets tossed to the wayside when the stakes grow too high.Looming are Beijing’s Winter Games, fueled by huge fees for broadcasting rights and corporate sponsorships and the billions spent by the Chinese government in an effort to gain respect on the international stage.Do Bach and the I.O.C. have the guts to stand up for one of their own and call out the dictatorial host of its next showcase for a frightening human rights abuse?The answer, so far at least, is no.Contrary to the official I.O.C. statement, nothing is encouraging about this situation.Not if you know the long history of Chinese authoritarianism. Not if you know how it has been hammering at dissent and silencing anyone with enough clout to threaten national order — including prominent cultural and business figures like Jack Ma, founder of the internet firm Alibaba.Not if you know about how China has suppressed protest in Hong Kong and Tibet, or if you pay attention to the treatment of Muslim minorities — deemed genocide by the United Nations and dozens of nations, including the United States — despite Chinese denials.As predicted by critics, or anyone watching with even a bit of common sense, the I.O.C. finds itself compromised. That’s the cost of cozying up to authoritarian hosts like China, which held the Summer Games in 2008, and Russia, the site of the 2014 Winter Games.Compare the typical fecklessness of Bach and the I.O.C. with the uncompromising approach taken by the women’s pro tennis tour, which has been unafraid to stand up boldly for Peng, a former world No. 1 in doubles.“I have a hard time believing that Peng Shuai actually wrote the email we received or believe what is being attributed to her,” wrote Steve Simon, chief executive of the WTA Tour, in a statement. “Peng Shuai displayed incredible courage in describing an allegation of sexual assault against a former top official in the Chinese government.”Simon continued: “Peng Shuai must be allowed to speak freely, without coercion or intimidation from any source. Her allegation of sexual assault must be respected, investigated with full transparency and without censorship.The voices of women need to be heard and respected, not censored nor dictated to.”That’s putting people over profit. That’s guts. Professional tennis in China is a lucrative, fast-growing market. The men’s and women’s tours hold high-profile tournaments there, and the WTA Finals are slated for Shenzhen in 2022.Given the way female tennis players have long led on matters of human rights, it is no surprise that Billie Jean King, Serena Williams, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova have stood strongly for Peng. And it is no surprise younger stars have followed suit, led by Naomi Osaka, the torch bearer in the Tokyo Games this past summer, who has added her significant stature to the chorus asking “Where is Peng Shuai?”But Bach and the I.O.C., peddlers of Olympic mythology, have yet to join that chorus. Peng Shuai is part of the Olympic family, but the I.O.C. overlords lack the spine to stand up for one of their own. More

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      Garbiñe Muguruza Wins WTA Tour Finals in Mexico

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      The sport’s final tournament, an elite event for the best in the game, produced a veteran champion, and a glimpse of where women’s tennis is headed in 2022.GUADALAJARA, Mexico — As her final shot forced one final error, and Garbiñe Muguruza beat Anett Kontaveit and slammed an exclamation point onto the tennis season by winning the WTA Finals, the veteran player claimed more than just an individual triumph.This was not simply a win for a single player, but for power and aggression in women’s tennis and the unique form of mental toughness it requires.Muguruza, who prevailed, 6-3, 7-5, in 99 minutes, had her opponent on her heels from the start, finding opportunities to break Kontaveit nearly every time she served in the first set, pushing forward and making Kontaveit backpedal far behind the baseline and scramble across the back of the court. Kontaveit, an Estonian, made a battle of it, forcing Muguruza to raise her level of play in the second set. But after an hour and a half, Kontaveit resembled a prize fighter whose arms were still swinging but whose wobbly legs could not sustain her any longer.“A dream come true to play here,” said Muguruza, a Spaniard the Mexican fans adopted as one of their own during the tournament.Trying to guess the next dominant player in women’s tennis long ago became an act of futility. The game produces surprise champions practically every week. But what unfolded a mile above sea level in the middle of Mexico in the past week provided plenty of hints about where the women’s game is going. Players hoping to make it at the elite level would do well to figure out how to hit the ball as hard as they can, and then try to hit it even a little bit harder, and not care much when inevitable misses occur.“It doesn’t always go your way,” said Kontaveit, who survived an onslaught from Maria Sakkari of Greece in the semifinals and figured out the modern power game of the moment as few others have during her white-hot final month of the season. “You miss some shots. Be kind to yourself, and look forward to the next point.”The WTA Finals is different from other tournaments, where top players can usually spend a few rounds getting a feel for the ball against inferior competition. The WTA Finals includes only the best eight available players of the season. Every match is a test the caliber of a Grand Slam quarterfinal, or something even tougher, making it clear what it takes to win at the highest level, night after night.The tennis of the past eight days was not for the faint of heart. This was a collection of women blasting ball after ball after ball, mostly trying to pummel opponents into submission rather than outthink them.Muguruza powered her way to the trophy over eight days in Mexico.Carlos Perez Gallardo/ReutersThe eight-player field in Mexico included two players — Iga Swiatek of Poland and Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic — who approach the court with an old-style mix of finesse and artistry. Swiatek and Krejcikova went a combined 1-5 in round robin play and failed to advance to the semifinals. The last four was made up of players whose specialty is hitting untouchable balls through the back of the court at withering speed. When the ball is landing inside the lines, the strategy wins points and games and crushes an opponent’s spirit.Muguruza, a two-time Grand Slam champion who is 28, has been doing this for a while, though this was her first time reaching the final in the year’s ultimate tournament.A dozen years ago, after she had sprouted to six feet tall, she realized that following in the stylistic footsteps of the Spanish greats of the previous generation was not going to work for her. They were classic defenders, so-called dirt-ballers who honed their games on clay and fought tennis wars of attrition.“I’m a tall woman, big arms, and my personality did not match the classic Spanish game,” Muguruza said Tuesday. “I wanted to dominate.”She did plenty of that in Guadalajara, and it was fitting that to get to the finals, Muguruza had to first beat the next iteration of herself in Paula Badosa, a 23-year-old Spaniard who modeled her game after Muguruza’s. Like Muguruza, Badosa is six feet tall, and she saw in Muguruza another way to play.“Other Spanish players play different,” Badosa said. “She was the only one who played super aggressive.”It’s true that had Ashleigh Barty of Australia, the world’s top-ranked player, opted to play this championship, finesse might have played a larger role in the past week. Barty’s greatest weapon is a slice backhand, though she, too, hits plenty of forehands through the back of the court and is among the game’s leaders in service aces. But Barty ended her season in September after spending six consecutive months on the road because of Australia’s restrictive rules for international travelers.And so, the 2021 WTA Finals unfolded mostly as a series of slugfests in which brute strength was as potent a weapon as a drop shot.There was a three-set brawl between Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus and Sakkari, the tour’s reigning gym rat. After outlasting Sabalenka, Sakkari spoke of using her supreme strength and fitness as weapons.“It makes a lot of players be kind of like intimidated because they know that I can last long,” Sakkari said.Playing with relentless aggression, though, is a high-risk, high-reward game, a tightrope walk without a safety net that brings wild swings within a season, or even a match.Kontaveit returning a shot to Muguruza on Wednesday.Hector Vivas/Getty Images for WTAKontaveit lost four straight matches and nearly all of her confidence during the summer when she could not make enough consistent and true contact with the ball. Then she got on a roll in the fall and won the final two tournaments to grab the final spot in this championship.Sabalenka seized the momentum and a 3-1 lead in the final set Monday night against Sakkari. Then the nerves kicked in, and her balls couldn’t find the court. With a game that is all power all the time, Sabalenka was out of options and barking at herself like a dog in the night as Sakkari reeled off five straight games to win their nearly three-hour battle.But 21 hours later, in the semifinal, those same crushing, crosscourt backhands from Sakkari kept floating long and wide or getting hammered right back across the net by Kontaveit. Sakkari then found her groove and got within three games of the finish line. But her blasts started hitting the net and flying long once more, and she could not find a way out of a rut that was both physical and mental.“A missed opportunity,” she said through tears when it was over.Wednesday night’s championship match was one last heavyweight bout.Muguruza muscled a backhand to earn her chance to win the first set, and oddly won it with a magical topspin lob, one of the few that anyone tried all week in Mexico. Soon, though, it was back to big hitting, serves darting for the corners and deep drives at the lines at the earliest opportunities. She fell behind late in the second set and needed one last burst of power to thrash through the final three games, collapsing on her back when Kontaveit’s final ball hit the middle of the net.Great tennis players have remarkable long-term memories and terrible short-term ones.They remember details of points played a decade earlier and can recall an opponent’s catalog of tendencies in the heat of competition.But they also have a knack for forgetting a lost point, game or set as soon as it’s gone. They play each point, each shot, on its own merits. Blast a forehand into the net. Fine. Here comes the next one, hit just as hard and with the strongest belief that it will find the back corner of the court.That is what Muguruza was able to do in the crucial moment Wednesday night.With the power game ascendant, it’s the likely path anyone who wants to compete for championships and make it to this elite finale will have to take in 2022. More