Garbine Muguruza Fears "Real Truth" About Peng Shuai May Never Be Known

World number three Garbine Muguruza said Saturday that the "real truth" about what happened to Peng Shuai may never be known after the tennis star accused a senior Chinese politician of sexual assault.

World number three Garbine Muguruza said Saturday that the "real truth" about what happened to Peng Shuai may never be known after the tennis star accused a senior Chinese politician of sexual assault. Peng, a former Wimbledon and French Open doubles champion, alleged on social media in November that former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli forced her into sex during a long-term on-off relationship. It was the first time that the #MeToo movement had touched China's ruling Communist Party but Peng's online post was deleted and her claims censored, then she disappeared from public, only to reappear three weeks later.

However, there remain doubts about how free Peng really is and having made global headlines for weeks, the outcry about her plight has since died down and the focus of the tennis world shifted to Novak Djokovic's visa saga.

"Are we going to know something about this? I don't know, I think it's a complicated country to deal with," Muguruza told reporters of Peng and China, which will host the Winter Olympics next month in the capital Beijing.

"It's a little bit not moving forward, I feel. It's just there since months and months," two-time Grand Slam champion Muguruza said ahead of the start of the Australian Open on Monday, where Peng will be absent.

"It seemed like for a moment, okay, we're going to find out what's happening.