Putting Principles Before Profits, Steve Simon Takes a Stand
The New York Times
The WTA chief has spent years in tennis working quietly to put players first. Suspending tournaments in China over the treatment of star Peng Shuai has made him the most talked-about leader in sports.
Guadalajara, Mexico, gave a party for women’s tennis last month, and when it ended, with Garbiñe Muguruza winning the WTA Finals, the season’s last tournament, confetti fell through the air and a mariachi band turned the Akron Tennis Stadium into a fiesta.
In the middle of it, Steve Simon, the bespectacled chairman and chief executive of the WTA Tour, stood quietly and unsmiling in a blue business suit with his hands clasped. He shared the occasional quiet word with Chris Evert and Billie Jean King, or one of the local officials he had helped persuade into holding the event on short notice, after the regular host, Shenzhen, China, pulled out because of the pandemic.
Simon had plenty else on his mind. As the tournament and closing celebration unfolded, a geopolitical crisis with women’s tennis at its center had occupied much of his time and he was leading the tour down an uncertain path.
