"Olympic champions Fan Zhendong and Chen Meng stunned Chinese table tennis fans by announcing that they were withdrawing from the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) rankings on Friday, barely five months after winning Olympic gold. (…)
“Recently, WTT [World Table Tennis] issued a new rule that fines will be imposed if you do not participate. I am really not willing to accept it, but I still respect the international organisations, so I can only choose to withdraw from the world rankings.” (…)
Chen’s post on Weibo also stressed the strain of competing at the Paris Olympics.
“The new regulations on withdrawal penalties recently issued by WTT, because my body is currently unable to bear every high-intensity event, out of respect for the international organisations, I signed the document on Monday and finally made the choice to withdraw from the world ranking,” she wrote.
The WTT 2025 handbook, published on December 20, stated that players who miss the WTT Grand Smash, WTT Champions and WTT Finals would be fined, the amount of which depends on the athletes ranking."
Fining people for not participating is such a weird take. Are there any other sports that do that?
There is probably a similar system in tennis, but with the crucial difference that the prize money at tournaments is many times higher. In TT, on the other hand, professional players are primarily financed through their contracts with the clubs that employ them. Despite their successes, participating in WTT-tournaments is sometimes a loss-making business for them because the prize money does not cover their travelling expenses, etc