10:32 PM
In an interview with a Singapore newspaper, Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai said that she never said she was raped.
The video that was posted by the newspaper shows her in China, but she said she was free to come and go as she pleases.
I want to emphasize that something is very important. I have never said that I wrote about being sexually abused. "I need to make it very clear that this point is important to me."
The reporter didn't ask about the post or whether it was hacked.
The Beijing Olympic Winter Games will begin in February and the paper said it interviewed Peng at a promotional event. She was filmed on the observation deck of a facility where she watched a freestyle ski competition with other Chinese sports figures.
The accusation against the former vice premier was quickly removed from her verified Weibo social media account. The World Tennis Association suspended all events in China indefinitely after screen shots of the post were shared across the internet, drawing concern about the safety of fellow tennis stars and politicians.
The three-time Olympian and former Wimbledon champion waved and signed tennis balls for children in Beijing after the posting. The foreign arm of state TV issued a statement in English that said that the accusation was false.
Steve Simon questioned the email statement's legitimacy while others said it only made them more concerned about her safety. In the interview, she said she wrote the statement in Chinese and it was later translated into English but there was no substantive difference between the two versions.
A top lieutenant to president and party leader, Zhang was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee until the year of 2018, when he retired. He has not commented on the accusation.
Simon said the move to put a halt to the tour's play in China, including Hong Kong, came with the support of the board of directors, players, tournaments and sponsors. It was the strongest public stand against China taken by a sports body, and it could cost the WTA millions of dollars.
Simon wants China to conduct an inquiry into the accusations made by the 35-year-old, who is the owner of titles at Wimbledon and the French Open.
The International Olympic Committee has taken a different stance, with top officials saying they believe that Peng is fine after video chatting with her.
Protests over Beijing's hosting of the Winter Games centered on concerns about the Chinese government's human rights abuses have been added to by the controversy surrounding Peng.
