The Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai sits in a crowded restaurant surrounded by friends and her coach, who is going through next year’s training plan with her. ‘Tomorrow is November 20th’, he says, in a seeming non-sequitur. ‘No, tomorrow is the 21st’, one of her friends corrects him. ‘Oh yes, oh yes, the 21st’.
This bizarre scene takes place in a new video released by several state-sources in China this afternoon, with one source even tagging the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), Wimbledon, Novak Djokovic, Marin Cillic and others on Twitter.
This is hysterical amateurism – but all the more sinister for it
The message of the video is clear. Peng Shuai – the tennis player who has been missing since she accused the former Chinese vice-premier, Zhang Gaoli, of raping her in 2018 – is safe and the tennis world needs to calm down.
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