Chinese netizens rally behind ‘Japanese Doll’ Ai Fukuhara after her Olympics defeat – to a China player

China’s defending table tennis champion Li Xiaoxia easily made it to the women’s singles finals by beating Japan’s Ai Fukuhara 4-0 – but it was the Japanese athlete who received more applause from Chinese fans.

The battle was closely watched by people in China, not only because of the usual tensions between the two countries but because Fukuhara has a huge Chinese fan base to whom she is known as the “Japanse Doll”.

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The 28-year-old Japanese athlete’s Chinese micro-blogging site, on which she has 590,000 followers, was flooded with messages of support after she was defeated on the fifth day of the Rio Olympics.

“I don’t know why but I want to cry seeing you got defeated. I am really going to cry if you don’t win bronze,” one Chinese netizen commented on Fukuhara’s Weibo page.

“Come here and let me hug you. Don’t cry,” said another.

Even the state-run China Central Television cheered for the Japanese player, saying that she had already done a “fabulous” job.