ATP cancels China events, adds new events to an updated calendar

The ATP has scrapped all China evens this year, but not because of the Peng Shuai situation but rather the country's COVID restrictions.

There has been a lot of disbelief when the ATP countered the WTA in allowing events in China this year due to Peng Shuai situation. They pulled all China events after it happened while the ATP supported all investigations and demanded justice but elected to stage events. Well, they're not going to go ahead due to the country's COVID restrictions.

The pandemic is still ongoing despite many countries adopting a fairly relaxed stance on it but China has still pretty strict rules in place to reduce the spread of the virus that is still circulating in the general population. The events were supposed to be held in September and October including the Shanghai Masters.

The ATP statement read:

"This marks the third year of cancellation for the ATP's China swing, typically hosted in September and October and last staged in 2019, prior to the pandemic. As a global sport, we continue to manage the impacts of the pandemic."

It further read:

"Event cancellations are an unfortunate reality, and we wish our affected tournament members and fans well. At the same time, it's incredibly encouraging to have many great cities step up to host ATP Tour tennis this season."

Instead, we will have a couple of new events on the schedule such as the Tel Aviv Open, the Seoul Open, the Napoli Open, the Firenze Open and the Gijon Open.