TA backflips over Peng protest

Tennis Australia has reversed the decision to ban Australian Open spectators from protesting against the whereabouts of former Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai.

A TA spokesman said the body would now take a commonsense approach to ticketing conditions and it would allow certain messaging as long as there was no disruption to the event.

Max Mok, a human rights activist involved in the initial protest on Friday, welcomed the news and said 1,000 T-shirts would be handed out on Saturday at Melbourne Park ahead of the women’s final.

“Let’s hope Tennis Australia keep to their promise and let the crowd wear them,” Mr Mok said.

Drew Pavlou, who was behind the GoFundMe campaign to print the T-shirts which has now raised over $15,000, said the news was “excellent”.

Peter Rowe

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