New twist in the Shuai Peng affair. In images captured by a Singaporean media, the Chinese tennis player assured that she had never accused anyone of sexual assault, and that her publications on social networks would have been "
misunderstood
". "
First, I need to insist on a very important point, I never said or wrote that someone had sexually assaulted me
", assured Shuai Peng, who spoke for the first times in front of the camera for several weeks, on the sidelines of an event to promote a Nordic skiing world cup stage in Shanghai.
The former doubles champion had disappeared from the radar since the alleged accusations in the direction of Zhang Gaoli, former right-hand man of Xi Jinping.
Appeared on a video, relayed by state media, alongside ex-basketball legend Yao Ming and wearing a black jacket bearing a Chinese flag, Shuai Peng further clarified that his publications on Weibo , Chinese Twitter, aroused "a
lot of misunderstandings
" and that these came under his "
private life
".
These revelations led the WTA, which governs the women's professional circuit, to suspend tournaments organized in China, to which Beijing replied that the country was opposed to
"the politicization of sport
".