Where is Peng Shuai? Nothing to see here

Where’s Peng Shuai? It seems like a fair enough question, about a tennis player, at the tennis. The WTA, a collective of tennis players, has been asking it for months. So have other tennis players.

But it’s a question out of the question at the Australian Open, as a group of activists discovered on the weekend when their “where is Peng Shuai?” T-shirts were confiscated and they were evicted.

Peng Shuai supporters at the Australian Open.

Evidently, the trouble is that it’s a political question. It contravenes a condition of entry that forbids “unauthorised promotional, commercial, political, religious or offensive items of whatever nature including clothing, banners, signs, symbols, leaflets, stickers or flyers”.

It sounds like (another) question for Tennis Australia’s CEO. “Where’s Craig Tiley?” we asked. It turns out it’s the question on everyone’s lips this fortnight.

Tiley began the fortnight with a question of his own: “Where’s Novak Djokovic?” Oops. We shouldn’t have mentioned the war. Any war. It’s a bit political. You wouldn’t want to promote the idea that there’s any sort of crossover between sport and politics. That would be political.

But we seem to have gotten away with it here.

Peng Shuai at the 2020 Australian Open.Credit:AP Photo

Inconveniently, we now recall that Djokovic’s father says he’s Jesus. Beep, beep, religion alert. How blatantly religious can you get? It’s not just religious, it’s blasphemous. Worse than that, it’s highly unauthorised. That must rule Djokovic out of next year’s tournament right now, surely?

So far, so good. We’re into this now, and haven’t had our column confiscated.

After a while, you get to wondering what is and isn’t acceptable at the Australian Open. On Sunday, there was Josh Frydenberg at Melbourne Park, and on TV, in tennis gear, prompting this thought: it must be an election year. Red light flashes, siren sounds, authorisation breach. OK, yes, that’s political. This paragraph will be shut down now.

Tennis Australia chief executive Craig Tiley.Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui

But what about all those flags? What is a flag if not a political statement? If you’re not sure, watch on Wednesday. Flags are an assertion of supremacy. But, of course, they’re authorised assertions of official supremacy.

The Australian Open even has authorised and non-authorised people. On Monday, Amanda Anisimova was a non-authorised person. Set to play Ashleigh Barty that night, her name was excised from nearly all the televised pre-publicity. You see, she was playing Australia’s most authorised person. Fortunately, Anisimova did what non-authorised persons are supposed to do: she disappeared.

We digress. What are these banned “offensive items of whatever nature”? Presumably, Nick Kyrgios’s attitude to umpires is classified as authorised contempt, and his cheer squad’s howling down of opponents is authorised chauvinism.

This is a serious matter. The whole Kyrgios thing is passed off as “entertainment”, but former Age tennis writer and lifelong fan Allan Attwood detailed in these pages last year how confronting it is for a non-squaddie who happens to have a ticket on a night Kyrgios is playing. We’ll give Kyrgios this much: he rarely outstays his welcome.

A Peng Shuai banner at Melbourne Park.Credit:Twitter

“Authorised” has an ominous ring. It doesn’t matter whether your political cause, religious standpoint, manners or clothing label are right or wrong, only that they’re authorised. Like in China.

But forbidding as the word sounds, it seems the sanction on unauthorised stuff is pretty liberally interpreted. Politics, dress code, even a bit of ambush marketing, all get by the censor at Melbourne Park eventually, but not a question about the whereabouts of a tennis-playing Chinese national, who made an allegation of sexual misconduct against a former Politburo member and has not been seen or heard since, other than in official communiques.

Perhaps we should try to sort this out over a drink. Would a craft beer suit, or cheeky white from the Yarra Valley? That always goes down well at the tennis. Red alert, red alert. Oh, oh, here come the authorisation police, left, right, left, right (which is not political comment by the way).

Did someone say 1573? In case you’re wondering, which I doubt, that’s the name of a liquor made by a company called Luzhou Laojiao, whose shareholders include state-owned enterprises in China. That’s China, homeland of the ghostly Peng Shuai.

Amanda Anisimova, non-authorised person.Credit:AP Photos

And whaddya know? 1573 has a huge sponsorship deal with the Australian Open and its highly authorised name and logo is all over the place at Melbourne Park, on the signboard of one court, the hoardings of another, on screens everywhere, in the coveted corner spots of Rod Laver arena and Margaret Court arena (if it is not too political to call it that?).

That’s the sort of hugely authorised mega commercial consideration that you don’t mess with, not if you want it to go on for a few more years yet, and you certainly would go to every length not to embarrass by giving a platform to unauthorised non-people in non-authorised un-T-shirts and carrying un-authorised non-banners highlighting a human rights issue and a running sore for tennis and world sport generally.

So, if we were to hazard a guess before our authorisation is de-authorised, that’s where Peng Shuai is.

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