LONDON - Tennis great Martina Navratilova has condemned as “pathetic” the Australian Open’s decision to stop fans wearing ‘Where is Peng Shuai?’ T-shirts, accusing Tennis Australia of “capitulating” to China, writes The Guardian.

Late last week spectators at Melbourne Park were asked to remove their T-shirts and security confiscated a banner emblazoned with the same words, on the grounds that TA prohibits “clothing, banners or signs that are commercial or political”.

The governing body stood by its rationale on Sunday and stated Peng’s “safety is our primary concern” and continued to work with the Women’s Tennis Association to “seek more clarity” on the Chinese star’s wellbeing almost three months after she accused a senior Chinese official of sexual assault and then virtually disappeared from public life.

But Navratilova, the retired Czech who won 18 grand slam singles titles, said she found it difficult to believe.

“That’s just pathetic,” Navratilova tweeted. “The @wta stands pretty much alone on this.”

She then appeared on the Tennis Channel alongside Lindsay Davenport and spoke more expansively on the issue.

Peng has appeared only rarely on Chinese social media since early November when her post on Weibo, in which she accused the former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault, was quickly deleted from China’s heavily censored internet.

In late December, Peng retracted her allegations in an interview with Singapore media outlet Lianhe Zaobao, a Chinese-language publication under the state-controlled Singapore Press Holdings Limited.

Since Peng alleged in November that she had been sexually assaulted by a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party, her “circumstances have remained murky”.