Peng Shuai suggests she is unlikely to return to WTA Tour during interview at Winter Olympics

Peng Shuai has suggested she is unlikely to return to the WTA Tour in an interview with L’Equipe at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

Peng gave her first interview to a Western media outlet since accusing a former Chinese party leader of sexual assault.

The 35-year-old, a former world number one doubles player, made the allegations against China’s former Vice Premier, Zhang Gaoli, at the start of November.

Peng claimed she was coerced into having sex with Zhang, which began an on-off consensual relationship with the former Politburo Standing Committee member.

Her post was deleted around 30 minutes after it was published, and she subsequently disappeared from public view for three weeks, sparking serious concern about her wellbeing.

Peng has now given an interview with L’Equipe. The meeting was granted by the Chinese Olympic Committee, whose chief of staff sat in on the encounter.

The French newspaper had to submit questions prior to the interview, but claimed it was able to ask more during the interview.

During the interview, Peng denied making the sexual assault accusations. It is the second time she has done this, having first denied making the claims to a Chinese-language Singaporean newspaper in December.

“This post has given rise to a huge misunderstanding from the outside world,” Peng told L’Equipe. “I hope that the meaning of this post will no longer be twisted. And I also hope that we don’t add more hype to this.”

She claimed she had deleted the post because she “wanted to”, but did not elaborate on how the post had been misunderstood.

Peng also suggested she would not return to playing tennis at a professional level.

“Considering my age, my multiple surgeries and the pandemic that forced me to stop for so long,