“never disappeared”
Peng Shuai reverses sexual assault
2/7/2022 5:24 am
Tennis player Peng Shuai accuses a top Chinese politician of sexual assault online. The post was deleted a little later and the Wimbledon winner did not appear in public for weeks. In an interview, she now denies the allegations and talks about the end of her career.
The former double world number one Peng Shuai no longer expects to return to the tennis tour. In view of her age, her numerous operations and the coronavirus pandemic, it is very difficult to imagine that she will reach her usual level again, said the 36-year-old Chinese in an interview with the French sports newspaper “L’Équipe”.
She hasn’t trained lately, but will always “remain a professional tennis player at heart,” said Peng. Most recently, she competed in Qatar in February 2020 in singles and doubles. In doubles she won a total of 23 tournaments, including the 2014 French Open and 2013 Wimbledon. In February 2014, Peng reached number one in the world rankings in doubles.
“Was just impossible to answer so many messages”
The Peng Shuai case has been moving the world for several months after she published allegations of sexual assault by a top Chinese politician on the social network Weibo in early November. The post was deleted soon after. Peng himself was not seen in public for almost three weeks afterwards. Since then, athletes, politicians and human rights activists have expressed concern for their well-being.
Peng later denied making the allegations. However, their statements seemed posed. Now she reiterated in “L’Équipe”: “I never said that anyone sexually harassed me in any way.” She explained that she herself deleted her statements from the network. When asked why she deleted her post, the 36-year-old said: “Why? Because I wanted to.”
“There was a big misunderstanding in the outside world after this post,” Peng said in the interview. “I don’t want the meaning of this post to be further distorted. And I don’t want any more media hype about it.” She also emphasized that she “never disappeared”. “It’s just that a lot of people, like my friends or people from the IOC, messaged me and it was just impossible to reply to so many messages.”
In the interview, Peng also spoke about meeting IOC chief Thomas Bach on Saturday at the Beijing Winter Olympics. They “had dinner together and had a nice chat,” Peng said. “He asked me if I was considering competing again, what projects I have, what I plan to do and so on,” she added. Peng was accompanied to the “L’Équipe” interview by Chinese Olympic Committee Chief of Staff Wang Kan.