Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, who is the second best female tennis player in China after Li Na, is facing a situation where very few domestic companies actually sponsor her.
Peng Shuai has been suffering from injuries on the waist which was caused by lack of physicians in her team. She has never had a personal physician over the years.
As a player within the Chinese sports system, Peng Shuai is registered as an athlete in Tianjin. Therefore, Tianjin Tennis Centre pays for her training, matches, and coaches. It is reported that such annual payment could reach 5 million yuan, but the money could not be fully allocated to her because there are other players to take care of.
Chinese sponsors normally use performance and ranking as the only criteria for deciding a sponsorship and Li Na’s past performances are often used as comparison.
An insider said that most Chinese companies do not want to invest until a player ranks in the top 10. They would rather pay big amount of money then, instead of paying less when the player is developing.
Last year, there were two companies that approached her to discuss about sponsorships. However, they gave up after some rounds of talks because Peng’s performance was not good enough yet.
Source: dfdaily