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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

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      The WTA Finals Provide a Fitting Finale to a Zany Year

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      Favorites who were virtually unknown a year ago. Big names missing in action. And, as usual, a championship completely up for grabs.GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Karolina Pliskova let out a good long breath Sunday afternoon when she finally defeated Barbora Krejcikova to finish off her round-robin play at the WTA Finals Sunday afternoon.After three sets in intense sun, there was nothing left to do but wait for the evening session’s outcome, and then, perhaps, play the final two matches of this ridiculously long and taxing year filled with restrictive bubbles and unmatched drama — and more Covid-19 tests than anyone cares to think about.Finally, mercifully, the 11-month endurance test that has been women’s tennis this year is approaching a fitting end in this near-mile-high city in central Mexico.Everything about these WTA Finals is so 2021. The season essentially began with more than two dozen players locked in their hotel rooms in Melbourne, Australia, for two weeks because they flew on planes with other players or coaches who tested positive for the coronavirus upon their arrival. So it was only proper that this tournament, which was supposed to be in China, faced its own pandemic-related upheaval. Tour officials had to scramble, moving the tournament out of a country that had largely prohibited foreigners from entering the country.As the final matches of the year were unfolding, tour officials were also confronting a claim this month by the Chinese player Peng Shuai, 35, who in a social media post said she had been sexually assaulted by a top official in the Chinese government. Her post has since been taken down, and on Sunday, Steve Simon, chief executive of the WTA Tour, which does extensive business in China, called on officials there to investigate the claim fully and transparently.The tour’s ties to China are deep though. After her match on Sunday, hours after the WTA released its statement condemning the Chinese, Pliskova was asked to film a promotional spot on behalf of the WTA in which she watched messages wishing her well from Chinese fans on an iPad, then recited a short script that culminated with, “I hope to see you soon in China.”A spokesman for the WTA said the message was targeted to Chinese fans, not government officials.Beyond logistical hurdles and the mounting China controversy, the most fitting tribute to this roller coaster of a season is that the eight players who earned the privilege of playing in the WTA Finals were about as random a collection as anyone could have imagined. In a sport in which seemingly any player can win a tournament, in which even a teenage qualifier this year surged to a Grand Slam event title, nothing was more appropriate than hearing player after player here confess to not being able to fathom at the start of the year that they would qualify for this exclusive championship.Paula Badosa of Spain said that in In January in Abu Dhabi, her coach told her that if she maintained her level she would make the top 30. Badosa, a fast-improving 23-year-old, told him that was impossible, that she would settle for the top 50.After winning the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., in October, she cracked the top 10. “I didn’t even expect it,” Badosa said ahead of her first match here, a 6-4, 6-0 demolition of the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, the No. 1 seed. “Even less expected to be here in the WTA Finals.”Paula Badosa has moved into the top 10 and won her first two matches in Guadalajara.Francisco Guasco/EPA, via ShutterstockHas there been a tennis season when the beginning and the end looked so different, and not merely because empty stadiums have given way to filled arenas? In February, after the Australian Open, where Naomi Osaka of Japan won her second consecutive Grand Slam singles event and the fourth of her career, she appeared ready to take control of the sport. Ten months later, she is on indefinite leave as she deals with her mental health. No one knows when, or if, she will return.Serena Williams made the semifinals in Australia and appeared poised for a serious try for a record-tying 24th Grand Slam singles title. She has been sidelined with injuries since the early summer. Ashleigh Barty of Australia, the 2021 Wimbledon champion, passed on the last two months of the season after an exhausting half-year on the road.The American Sofia Kenin, who arrived in Australia as the defending champion, endured an emergency appendectomy, Covid-19 and a split with her father and coach, Alex Kenin. She tumbled out of the top 10. Simona Halep of Romania, the No. 2 seed in Australia, battled injuries and is now ranked 22nd.The only player to make it back to this championship from 2019, the last time it was played, was Pliskova of the Czech Republic. In place of the usual stars are players like Maria Sakkari, a 26-year-old from Greece with a physique more typical of a mixed martial arts fighter than a tennis player. She cracked the top 20 only last year.The biggest name in the game at the moment, Emma Raducanu of Britain, the qualifier who won the U.S. Open in September, is not here because she did not qualify. The qualification requirements were made when everyone just assumed that anyone good enough to win a Grand Slam event would certainly be among the top-ranked players still playing at the end of the year. In a perfect world, the tour finals would feature all the Grand Slam champions and finalists.Alas, this championship has just a single Grand Slam singles champion from this year, Krejcikova, known until recently as a doubles specialist, who came out of nowhere to win the 2021 French Open. There is just one other Grand Slam finalist — Pliskova, who lost to Barty at Wimbledon. There, Barty looked like she might not lose again for a while, but she did not even make the second week of the U.S. Open and called it a season.As the last preliminary-round matches opened Sunday, little known Anett Kontaveit of Estonia — no one’s current idea of a tennis star — had emerged as a worldbeater, the winner of her last two tournaments and her first two matches in Mexico. Kontaveit, 25, was the last player to qualify for Guadalajara, but the first player to make it through to the semifinals.“I feel like I can take on anyone,” Kontaveit said Friday, after she blasted Pliskova, 6-4, 6-0, hitting the ball harder and flatter than in the past. “It’s really just trusting my shots a little more, going for it, but going for it with margins.”Badosa, too, has continued her new tricks, fulfilling the promise that the tennis cognoscenti had predicted when she was a rising junior. She finished last year ranked 70th, and spent much of the first part of the year losing crucial points in her biggest matches. Not these days: On Saturday, she won nearly all of them, floating across the baseline as she knocked off Sakkari, 7-6 (4), 6-4.“It’s experience,” Badosa said. “I was quite new at the beginning of the year.”Anett Kontaveit was the first player to make it through to the semifinals.Ulises Ruiz/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWith three days to go, the WTA Finals are shaping up as a glimpse of what the next season holds for this topsy-turvy sport rather than as a crowning of a champion of champions. Given the tumult in recent years, expecting anything specific from any one player from month to month, much less season to season, has become something of a fool’s errand.It’s better to just digest the competition as a snapshot of who is hot and who is not at a moment that just happens to be the end of the season.Those snapshots include Kontaveit almost never missing; Badosa wearing out the paint in the corners of the court with her forehand; Sabalenka blasting 120-mile-per-hour second serves and willing the crowd into her corner in a come-from-behind, three-set win over Iga Swiatek of Poland on Saturday night.“I kept saying, ‘You have to get through this challenge, you have to get through this challenge,’ again and again,” Sabalenka said at the end.She was talking about the match. She could have been talking about the season. More

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      WTA Finals, a Nomadic Tournament, Lands in Mexico

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      A last-minute deal brings the event to Guadalajara. But what about that altitude?After two decades of wandering the globe, the WTA Finals had finally found a home, or so it seemed in 2019.That was the first year the finals were held, to great fanfare, in Shenzhen, China, under a deal that would keep the tournament there for 10 years.The event has not been back since, and on Wednesday it will instead be played in Guadalajara, Mexico, after an agreement in September.The tournament, which has been played under different names over the years, has long been a bit nomadic. It was held at Madison Square Garden from 1979 to 2000 and has moved five times from 2001 to 2013. It then spent five years in Singapore.The pandemic forced the cancellation of last year’s tournament, the first time it had not been held since the finals began nearly 50 years ago, when the finals were called the Virginia Slims Championships.This year, with the Akron WTA Finals Guadalajara, that means some players will be competing in one of the biggest tournaments outside of the Grand Slams in the third different city in the last three finals.“I personally don’t care if the location changes every year; it’s always exciting to be able to compete in the event,” said Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain, who qualified three times from 2015 to 2017 and is one of the eight players invited to play singles this year.For months, the WTA planned a return to Shenzhen, while having parallel discussions with other cities, including Hong Kong.“Knowing the situation was less than clear, we had a Plan A, a Plan B and a Plan C,” said Micky Lawler, the WTA president. “We wanted to give our top players a chance to compete the way they deserved to end 2021, but putting on events is really tough during a pandemic, and circumstances keep changing and are out of your control.”The tour ended up going with Plan D: Guadalajara.“I personally don’t care if the location changes every year,” Garbiñe Muguruza said of the WTA Finals.Dean Lewins/EPA, via Shutterstock“It’s very difficult to plan an event at this scale, and they offered a great solution in a market where we already had a tournament,” Lawler said, referring to the lower-level tournament held there in March. (The No. 1 seed was 46th-ranked Nadia Podoroska of Argentina.)The WTA was impressed by the team that ran that tournament, but also there was no Plan E, Lawler said. “This wasn’t a situation of ‘Let’s choose between places,’” she said. “It was, ‘We don’t want a second year in a row without a WTA Finals, so let’s put all our resources together and make this work.’”Lawler said that Steve Simon, the WTA chief executive, was running weekly board meetings and that the tour held constant discussions with the players and the sponsors. “Everyone’s attitude was that this was not what we planned for, but they would support it because it was better than no tournament.”While Lawler is certain that there will be challenges — she points to a sudden Covid-related lockdown that started during a recent tournament in Moscow — she is confident that they will be surmountable. Many of the players are certainly eager for the tournament, even if there are obstacles. (The exception is Ashleigh Barty, the tour’s top-ranked player and the defending champion. She is skipping the tournament to avoid another stint in quarantine after returning to her native Australia.)Karolina Pliskova said reaching the WTA Finals was always a personal goal when the season started. This is her fifth straight year at the tournament, making her the only player besides Muguruza with experience in the event. The newcomers competing in singles are Paula Badosa, Anett Kontaveit, Barbora Krejcikova, Aryna Sabalenka, Maria Sakkari and Iga Swiatek.Pliskova, who is the only person to play in Singapore, Shenzhen and now Guadalajara over three consecutive WTA Finals, said the shift in locales erased some of her advantage.“It’s better for players who have never played in the tournament because if it was in the same place each year, players who had been there would know how the courts play and know all the activities and would feel more relaxed,” she said. “This year, everybody is basically starting from zero.”The biggest difference between Guadalajara and pretty much any other WTA Finals location is the altitude. The city is about 5,000 feet above sea level, which will make the ball fly faster but trickier to control, while also challenging players to catch their breath after long rallies.Guadalajara is about 5,000 feet above sea level, an altitude that will affect how the ball flies and how players breathe.Getty Images“The altitude is a salient factor, and it came up in conversations with the players, but everyone’s in the same boat,” Lawler said, adding that it is no different from having a surface that favors certain players. “These players are the best of the best, so while some will love it less, they’re going to adjust.”Krejcikova said that she had no experience playing at that altitude, but that she did not care about how it would change the game. “I’m just happy to be going to the WTA Finals,” she said. “I always wanted to play against the other top players to see where my level is.”She said that she believed that the bigger hitters and servers might benefit from getting extra velocity on their power shots, resulting in shorter points, but that she would not decide how to adjust her game until she practiced there.Muguruza said the strongest players might benefit from the altitude. But the extra velocity comes with a catch. “It will be the ones who can control their power who will have more opportunities,” she said, because balls could easily sail long or wide.Pliskova said she might change the tension on her strings to give her more control or more spin.“I don’t want to change too much — my game is my game — but I may change a little,” she said, adding that someone who was good at defending might benefit if players could not control their shots, as long as they were in good enough condition to handle long points at that altitude.Although the WTA hopes to return the finals to Shenzhen in 2022, there is hope that this rare visit from the game’s best players will give the sport a boost in Mexico. Heather Bowler, a spokeswoman for the International Tennis Federation, said in an email that at the recreational and amateur level Mexico had the lowest ratio in the region of players to population and the lowest percentage of female players.“Bringing an elite-level tournament, WTA Finals will drive awareness and increase an appetite for the game, so it certainly is a good basis on which to build on in the future,” she wrote, “and the WTA should be a great catalyst for sport in the region and for Mexico as a nation.”Lawler said that while nothing was in the works, increased interest could eventually lead to bigger tournaments and more resources for young players in the region, creating a positive cycle. “If there is an appetite to build something in Mexico, we would do everything we can to support it,” she said.Krejcikova said she thought about the way the sport and the players were seen by girls at every tournament, but especially when it was someplace new.“I hope we are good examples for them,” she said, “and can have a big impact on the younger generation in Mexico.” More

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      Iga Swiatek, Voted a Fan Favorite, Turns to the Finals

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      She shocked the sport when she not only won the French Open, but dominated it. Building Legos helps her relax.Iga Swiatek likes Legos and long books. Both help keep her mentally sharp for the grueling matches she plays on the WTA Tour.While quarantined in her hotel room for two weeks before the Australian Open in February, Swiatek, 20, completed the contents of two giant Lego boxes that she carried from her home in Poland. When she began competing at the United States Open in August, she was three weeks into reading “Gone with the Wind,” a long American classic.A year ago, after shocking the sport by winning the French Open without dropping a set (she lost just 28 games in seven matches), Swiatek became the lowest-ranked woman, at No. 54, to win the title. She was also the first player from Poland to capture a major and the youngest woman to win at Roland-Garros since then-18-year-old Monica Seles in 1992.Swiatek qualified for her first WTA Finals, the eight-woman championship, last year, but the event was canceled because of the pandemic. A year later, after winning the Adelaide International and Italian Open and reaching No. 4 in the world in September, Swiatek, now ranked No. 10, has qualified again.The following conversation has been edited and condensed.How disappointed were you when last year’s finals was canceled?I wouldn’t say that I was disappointed because last year was pretty tricky for me. I was happy that Roland-Garros was the last tournament because I could learn how to deal with all the new reality and new obligations. And it wouldn’t have been fair [to contest the finals] since there were so few tournaments and many players didn’t play. I know that the Covid situation and the break that we had on tour probably helped me a lot. I don’t know if I would have had the same success if we didn’t have Covid.Iga Swiatek returned a shot to Anett Kontaveit, of Estonia, during the third round of the U.S. Open in September. Last year, she became the lowest-ranked woman to win the French Open. Elise Amendola/Associated PressWhen you were a little girl, did you ever imagine being among the Elite Eight?I never thought about it because there are so many other players with great experience. But after I won Roland-Garros I had the feeling that anything could happen in tennis right now.In Guadalajara, you will be playing with pressureless tennis balls to combat the effects of the 5,000-foot altitude. How will you adjust?I have no idea. I have to try this. I played in Madrid (about 2,100 feet) for the first time this year, and my shots were flying like crazy. So we made some adjustments, and by the end I played really solid tennis. Guadalajara is going to be even worse, so I really need to get used to the conditions.In Indian Wells you had the chance to visit with Andy Murray, and now you want to practice with him. What do you want to learn?I told him we should practice on grass because, even though I reached the fourth round at Wimbledon this year, I feel like every day can be tricky on grass, and I need some more power and more experience to be solid there.You were voted the WTA’s fan favorite for your drop shot and your singles play. What did that mean to you?It meant a lot because when I have a hard time finding the motivation to practice I always remember that tennis is entertainment. I love playing in stadiums, especially when I win, and I love the support I get from people.You recently donated $50,000 in support of World Mental Health Day. What have you learned about yourself and your own mental wellness after traveling for so many years with your own sports psychologist?It’s hard to separate what I’ve learned from the new experiences I’ve had and from just growing up. When I won Roland-Garros I was 19, and that’s a period of life when you learn a lot about yourself even when you’re not an athlete. I feel like there is a pretty crazy mix between my personal and work life because being an athlete is a 24-hour job. But I wouldn’t change this experience for anything because I think it gave me a lot of knowledge about myself and wisdom that I can use later in life. More

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      For Barbora Krejcikova, Tennis Grew on Her

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      She first played for fun, but she has gone on to win the French Open and is half of a formidable doubles team.Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic never dreamed of a pro tennis career.She did not wallpaper her bedroom with posters of great Czech players, hit balls against a wall late at night while pretending she was playing match point at Wimbledon or spend hours as a 7-year-old working out in the gym. She did once, however, after winning a local junior tournament, receive an Andre Agassi promotional poster, but does not remember what she did with it.“I always loved tennis, always wanted to play, but only played for fun,” Krejcikova said in a video conversation last month. “I only realized later, when I was 16 or 17 and playing junior slams, that this was something that I would love to do. That I wanted to be in the same locker room as the superstars and play against them someday.”Three years ago, Krejcikova was ranked outside the world’s Top 200 in singles, but reached No. 1 in doubles with her countrywoman Katerina Siniakova. Now she is ranked a career-high No. 3 in singles and is the first player since another fellow Czech, Karolina Pliskova in 2016, to qualify for the WTA Finals in singles and doubles. Pliskova will also compete in the event, in Guadalajara, Mexico, which makes two of the eight singles players Czech.Krejcikova qualified by winning the French Open in June and reaching the quarterfinals at the United States Open and the round of 16 at Wimbledon.“What happened this season, it’s really hard to describe it,” Krejcikova said. “I mean, it’s just perfect. It was this amazing season and really my big breakthrough. I’m really glad that things went the way that they went.”Krejcikova, 25, is the latest in a long line of great Czech women tennis players. Vera Sukova reached the Wimbledon final in 1962. Martina Navratilova reached two major finals while representing Czechoslovakia in 1975, then won 18 majors, including nine Wimbledons, after she defected to the United States.Hana Mandlikova, Jana Novotna and, more recently, Petra Kvitová, are all major champions, and Pliskova, who reached the final at Wimbledon this year before losing to Ashleigh Barty, was ranked No. 1 in 2017. Sukova’s daughter, Helena, won 14 majors in doubles.Barbora Krejcikova, right, with her doubles partner, and fellow Czech, Katerina Siniakova, during a match at the U.S. Open in September.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesThe Czech Republic won the Fed Cup six out of eight years, from 2011 to 2018. Krejcikova made the team, playing doubles in 2018 and ’19. She made her singles debut in the competition, now renamed the Billie Jean King Cup, in Prague last week.“There is only one reason that so many Czech players have been successful, and it’s because the coaches there all teach good technique,” said Mandlikova, winner of four majors in the 1980s before she served as the coach of the 1998 Wimbledon winner Novotna who, in turn, became Krejcikova’s mentor. “Sometimes that takes a little longer to develop, but it stays with you for your whole life.”Krejcikova was not unknown as a junior. At 17 she won the 2013 European Junior Championships in singles and doubles. The same year, she and Siniakova captured junior doubles titles at the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.Still playing together on the WTA Tour, the pair won the French Open and Wimbledon in 2018 and the French this year. They also won a gold medal at the Olympics in July. This is the third time they have qualified for the WTA Finals, where they were runners-up in 2018. Krejcikova is also a three-time Australian Open mixed doubles winner.“I remember when we played the Australian Open in 2020, she was in qualifying for singles and was ranked like 120, 130 in the world,” said Nikola Mektic, half of the world No. 1 doubles team. “To be Top 5 now is a major accomplishment for her. And she still keeps playing doubles and mixed, so hats off to her.”Krejcikova has been trying to improve her singles game. From 2014 to 2019, she played the qualifying tournaments at the four majors 16 times, advancing to the main draw only once. She trained for several years at the TK Agrofert Prostejov, the same club where Kvitova trained.“Petra is a legend,” Krejcikova said. “I used to watch her a lot, and I always wished that I could hit some balls with her. But then we were on the Fed Cup team together, and now I have a different perspective. It’s just crazy.”Kvitova said she believed that doubles success had made Krejcikova a better singles player. “It’s the variety of her game and how she is seeing it from the doubles as well,” said Kvitova, a two-time Wimbledon winner. “She has a kick serve too which not many players have. And she has drop shots, slice, topspin, serve and volley, whatever, it’s all there.”In January 2014, when she had just turned 18 years old, Krejcikova and her mother, Hana Krejcikova, knocked on the door of Novotna’s house in Brno, looking for advice. Novotna agreed to work with Krejcikova.“I would say that the connection to her was a huge guiding light for me, and I really appreciate that she gave me her time and wanted to help me and not someone else,” Krejcikova said of Novotna, who died of cancer at age 49 in 2017. Because of Novotna, Krejcikova has become involved with the WTA’s Aceing Cancer campaign.“Even when everyone else was in the Top 100 and I was playing I.T.F.s [International Tennis Federation tournaments] and qualifying, she always told me: ‘Be patient, you’re going to be like me. Keep improving, and you’ll get there one day.’ And, out of nowhere, I’m here.” More