Andy Roddick criticizes silence on Peng Shuai case: "We need to keep talking about it"

Andy Roddick reignited the discussion on the Peng Shuai case following the return of tournaments to China. The former doubles world No. 1 had made a sexual assault accusation against Zhang Gaoli, former Chinese vice-premier and senior member of the Chinese Communist Party.

Peng published a detailed message on her Weibo account, China's version of Facebook, where she made her accusation public. The post was deleted half an hour after it was published, and the Chinese government was accused of widespread censorship on social media and in the media. This marked the first time a high-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party faced allegations of sexual violence.

After the case gained attention on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, WTA’s CEO Steve Simon called on the authorities to investigate Peng's accusations. She remained silent on social media or any other form of communication for more than two weeks.

The tennis community launched a campaign with the hashtag #WhereIsPengShuai, highlighting her disappearance, which eventually led to the WTA's decision not to hold tournaments in China. However, they reversed that decision for the 2024 Asian Swing, despite lingering concerns about Peng’s whereabouts. Simon commented that Chinese sources had confirmed Peng’s safety, leading to the decision to return tournaments to China for the first time since 2019 when the COVID-19 pandemic halted the events.

Although the issue hadn’t been a major focus during the recent Asian Swing, former world No. 1 Andy Roddick addressed the Peng Shuai case in his podcast Served with Roddick. “We'll just reset the situation real quick before we kind of assume that every listener knows exactly what happened and what the current situation is,” Roddick began.

“In my opinion, there’s just no world where this is all some coincidence, right? Where she alleges this, and then we don’t ever hear from her in her own words. So we need to keep talking about it, even if it’s not the story of the week,” he added.

“We hope that she’s okay. She’s not allowed to talk to anyone, no one’s allowed to Google anything she said,” the former world No. 1 continued. “I think if you live in a place where there is freedom of the press, where you can have an opinion without being excluded from life, we should maybe just pay attention to that and be thankful for it.”

“I don’t blame the WTA. I applauded them when they took a stand, but also the stand can’t be at the expense of the survival of the tour financially,” Roddick concluded.