News about Peng Shuai

MATCH POINT COLUMN: MIKE DICKSON COLUMN: The truth of professional sports is that lofty ideals rarely come with a hefty price tag. The fortnight preceding Easter may have been remembered as the time when tennis realized that their price is too expensive. Thena of British tennis had risen to protest the ban on Russian and Belarusian players a year after one significant tennis nation was barred from UK grass-court events following another barbaric attack on another. After the first major collision with reality, then took another stand, which crumbled. The WTA Tour is back to China, one of the world's most important and lucrative markets in the last decade.

RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: James Grimes is out on the other end of the story now, but he's willing to return to the scary parts of his memory if necessary. He does it because he cares and cares because he was an addict himself and so he knows the devastating, corroding power of those many football games. Campaigning against them has expanded his career, but the fact of his unraveling is that revisiting the traumas of his deception is vital to the game. On Friday, he told me, 'It can be difficult,' and you'll find out why. He adored football and used to go to Peterborough and away, but then he lost his first fiver at the bookie at the age of 16. He had all the games on his phone by 18, and by 28, he had lost £100,000, or basically every penny he had. However, the money was not nearly the worst of his losses.

XclusIVE BY MATT HUGHES: Women's tennis will return to China this fall for the first time since Peng Shuai's disappearance, despite continuing doubts about her identity and safety. Sportsmail has revealed that the women's tour has decided to travel to China in September and October, which will be followed by the season-ending WTA Finals in Shenzhen, with an announcement expected shortly. In reaction to Peng's apparent disappearance the previous month, the WTA suspended relations with China and all tournaments would be hosted in the region in December 2021, according to chief executive Steve Simon.

After British tennis was fined £825,000 for barrering them from all UK events this year, pressure is being placed on Wimbledon to lift its ban on Russian players next summer. In the aftermath of the ATP Tour's financial punishment, the Lawn Tennis Association was left outraged. This comes off the back of a £620,000 fine from the women's WTA Tour, which is also insistent that Russian and Belarus competitors are allowed to participate, although under neutral flags.

MIKE DICKSON: The whole issue was brought into focus a fortnight ago at the Chinese Communist Party's congress, where more power was conferred on President Xi. Zhang Gaoli, the tennis player's first public appearance since she was disqualified in the aftermath of her allegations, was sitting in the front row. Peng Shuai, 36, hasn't been seen since some stage-managed outings at the winter Olympics in February. Zhang's reap reappetion was seen as a sign of his continuing membership in the party, which also abolished the policy of having at least one woman in its politburo. One female member of the union is set to retire next year, and she will not be able to be replaced.

When Dan Evans had Roger Federer's royal summons to practice with him, he knew he was going to make it in tennis. He was in Dubai eight years ago, and in the intervening period, he has twice returned to his base in Switzerland to act as a sparring partner. So the British No. 2, who led the GB 1-0 up against the Netherlands on Friday night in a must-win Davis Cup qualifier with two players remaining, will be sorry to see the Swiss legend step away after the Laver Cup in London next week.

Steve Simon, the WTA Tour's Chief Executive, has reiterated that they will not be abandoning their principles and returning to what has become one of the tournament's key markets. Following the venue's announcement for Fort Worth, Texas, at the end of this season, a press release earlier this week appeared to have predicted that the year-end finals would be held there in 2023. The tour was largely dismissed by the word 'with the event thereafter scheduled to return to Shenzhen, China,' implying that the tour was actually changing its position. However, Simon insists that this will not be the case until there is more clear evidence that former Wimbledon doubles champion Peng Shuai is living happily and safely.