The case of the missing tennis player seen by social media

The case of Peng Shuai, the Chinese tennis player who disappeared after accusing the former vice premier of her country of sexual violence, shakes the world of sport and international diplomacy, with even the UN in recent days asking for proof of the star's location of Chinese tennis.

According to the news of the last few hours, there was a video call with the president of the International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach, and therefore, fortunately, the story seems to be heading towards a happy ending.

Waiting for further reassurance on Peng Shuai's health, ANSA and DataMediaHub have analyzed online conversations (social + online news + blog and forum) at a global level since the news about the uncertainty of the tennis player's fate went around the world until at midnight yesterday 21 November. There were more than 384 thousand online citations relating to 'pensions', by almost 58 thousand unique authors, whose contents involved (like + reaction + shares and comments) more than 2.1 million people, the online citations relating to tennis player. 1.5% of these in Italian. The maximum peak was between 2:00 pm and 3:00 pm on November 19th with 7,400 citations in one hour.

Volumes that obtain an 'opportunity to be seen' of over 1.055 billion impressions.

Even with a reasonable estimate of 5% of the actual range compared to the potential for the impressions, the actual exposures to content related to the champion are around 527 billion, gross of duplications.

In short, the whole world is really looking for Peng Shuai and, as the word cloud of the most common terms in online conversations relating to the tennis player shows, it is no coincidence that the hashtag #WhereIsPengShuai (where is Peng Shuai?) Also full page are the editions of last November 20 of the two best-selling sports newspapers in France and Spain, L'Equipe and Marca.

The content that generated the most engagement is Serena Williams' tweet in which the tennis player, on November 18, declares herself 'devastated and shocked by the news about Peng Shuai'.

But even the aforementioned front page of L'Equipe gets almost 26,000 likes and more than 9,000 retweets and tweets that mention it and comment on it.

Comments which of course are largely negative, of indignation, as well as that of Williams, with in fact as much as 85.2% of negative sentiment, of negative emotions associated with online verbalizations about the tennis player.

A river in flood by people all over the planet that could have induced the Chinese authorities to make her reappear if, as we hope, her good health is confirmed.