French Open: Did Stefanos Tsitsipas’ Hong Kong tweet stop Chinese state TV showing final?

Greek’s match with world No 1 Novak Djokovic snubbed for China women’s volleyball team and England v Croatia Euro 2020 game by CCTV
Former Chinese fan favourite fell foul for 2020 tweet about Hong Kong protests and may have met same fate as Arsenal and NBA

French Open

Jonathan White

Published: 2:03pm, 16 Jun 2021

Why you can trust SCMP

Chinese tennis fans have complained after the French Open men’s singles final was not shown on state television, with speculation as to whether the reason was Stefanos Tsitsipas’ tweet during the 2019 Hong Kong protests.

World No 1 Novak Djokovic beat first-time slam finalist Tsitsipas in the showpiece at Roland Garros but CCTV’s sports channel was showing the women’s volleyball between China and the Dominican Republic on their main CCTV-5 sports channel and England against Croatia from Euro 2020 on the digital CCTV-5+.

Both the FIVB Volleyball Nations League and European Championships matches shown were group stage games, while the match between the Serbian top seed and Greek world No 5 was a grand slam final.

Instead, Chinese fans had to find alternative platforms to watch Djokovic win the championship in five sets after coming back from two sets down. CCTV had shown coverage of the tournament, including Saturday’s women’s singles final, before stopping broadcasts ahead of the men’s final.

Several fans complained about the decision on Chinese social media, while others – including an article on the Sina Sports platform – speculated as to the reason behind it, pointing to the fallout from a post Tsitsipas made on Twitter last year.

Tsitsipas tweeted a link to the “Freedom is a Serious Crime” video on Hong Kong’s anti-government protests on Vimeo on June 1, 2020.

“This made me cry how good it was,” he wrote along with a link to the short film.

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Tsitsipas swiftly deleted the tweet after being accused of supporting the protesters by fellow Twitter users.

Despite deleting the tweet, images of it were shared on Chinese social media platforms such as Weibo where netizens declared their fury and also told him that he was no longer welcome in China.

One fan account on Weibo announced the day after the tweet that they would no longer update it with the Greek star’s latest news. Tsitsipas’ official Weibo account has not been updated since last May.

The 22-year-old had become a popular player with mainland tennis fans in recent years.

In 2019, he spoke of how many gifts he received from Chinese fans – including a love letter from his No 1 fan – while in the country for the Shanghai Rolex Masters.

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At the 2019 China Open in Beijing earlier that year he was also full of praise for the local support.

“I enjoy my time here. My Chinese fans are really loyal, showing a lot of support during my matches,” he told the ATP.

“I created a Weibo account a few days ago and I received a lot of messages there. A lot of people like to see me more in China. I get nice vibes, positive vibes here.”

He even sent a message in Chinese on his Twitter after playing in Shanghai in 2018: “Thank you for all the wonderful moments in Shanghai. I like playing tennis here!”

This would not be the first time that CCTV decided not to broadcast sporting events because of non-sporting reasons.

NBA-China relations returning to normal after CCTV brings back live coverage for game five of Finals

English Premier League side Arsenal were pulled from schedules after Mesut Ozil’s support on social media for Xinjiang’s Uygur Muslims, while the NBA found itself off screens after an October 2019 tweet supporting Hong Kong’s protesters by then Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey.

The NBA returned for last season’s finals but streaming giant Tencent did not show Morey’s new team, the Philadelphia 76ers, this season.