"Peng Shaui e-mails 100 % orchestrated" says WTA CEO Steve Simon

WTA CEO Steve Simon has garnered a lot of praise for his swift actions over the Peng Shuai situation and in a recent CNN interview, he explained why.

A lot has been written about Peng Shuai and her safety over the past couple of weeks and WTA chief Steve Simon took the matter seriously. He notified the Chinese government of his intention to pull all WTA events from the country if his expectations were not met in terms of guaranteeing the safety of Peng and after they weren't he acted upon his intentions. The WTA officially pulled out all events from China until the situation with Peng is not resolved.

Simon has repeatedly asked to speak with Peng personally but his requests have been denied. The only method of communication allowed was through e-mails whose author apparently was the player herself. Simon does not believe that is the case and he confirmed it in an interview with CNN:

“I would characterize [the emails] as orchestrated at this point in time. When you come out with the allegations that Peng did early in November, they were significant and they were detailed. And now to be receiving the emails and the correspondence from her that certainly are very – they’re just 100% orchestrated, and I do not think that they reflect what the allegations did and the true position."

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Simon explicitly believes that because Peng has expressed regret over her decision to speak out saying that the allegations are not true. She also expressed shock and disappointment by the reaction of the WTA to pull all events and to Simon that a clear red flag. Asked what sort of contact they have with the country he said:

“The contact that we’ve had has basically been consistent. She’s in Beijing, She’s fine, she’s under no physical stress, etc. Which is what we’ve seen in the videos and the pictures that we’ve seen. We just feel very strongly that this (contact) has certainly been orchestrated, consistent with those that are very familiar with the region as to how these things (sexual assault allegations) are handled over there. It is fully expected."

He finished up with:

“We have two principle points right now. We definitely want to confirm Peng is available to speak without censorship, any pressures or any restrictions in any way and we do want a full and transparent investigation into these very serious allegations.”