More tennis stars join #WhereIsPengShuai, WTA threatens

Women Tennis Association (WTA) has threatened to pull out tournaments from China if tennis star Peng Shuai issue is not resolved and her whereabouts made known.

WTA chief executive Steve Simon told various US media outlets on Thursday the tour would consider pulling tournaments worth tens of millions of dollars out of China.

‘We’re definitely willing to pull our business and deal with all the complications that come with it,’ he told CNN in an interview.

‘Because this is certainly, this is bigger than the business. Women need to be respected and not censored.’

The number of tennis players keying into the campaign has continued to increase with no word of clarification from China so far.

Andy Murray and Serena Williams have become the latest high-profile names to join the campaign to find missing tennis star Peng Shuai in the wake of her sexual assault allegations.

The former doubles world No 1 has not been seen or heard from publicly since she said on Chinese social media in early November that former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli coerced her into sex three years ago, and that they had had an on-off relationship.

Neither Zhang or the Chinese government have commented on her allegation. Peng’s social media post was quickly deleted and the topic has been blocked from discussion on China’s heavily censored internet.

Serena Williams also took to her own social media and received well over 24,000 retweets. Aside from the American star other players Novak Djokovic, Naomi Osaka among others have all joined in the quest to put the issue on the front burner and force authorities to open up.

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By Friday, the hashtag #WhereIsPengShuai had racked up over 32 million mentions on Facebook’s Instagram, which is also blocked in China, as well as Twitter, according to hashtag analysis website BrandMentions.