Chinese fans, media query empty seats at ‘sold-out’ ITTF World Table Tennis Championships
The sight of unfilled arenas leads to media and online commenters suggesting that scalpers bought tickets to re-sell to Chinese fans
Chinese media outlets have queried the ticket sales at the supposedly sold-out ITTF World Table Tennis Championships in Doha after some poorly attended matches during the opening weekend.
Banks of empty seats were seen at Lusail Sports Arena and Qatar University for a large number of matches, although fans did show up at the multipurpose hall in Lusail when China’s Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha beat Liang Jishan and Amy Wang of the United States in their mixed doubles match on Sunday.
In other matches, including when French duo Simon Gauzy and Prithika Pavade overcame German pair Patrick Franziska and Annett Kaufmann at Lusail on Sunday afternoon, hardly any seats were filled at the 15,300-seat arena.
Scenes on the opening two days of the nine-day tournament were in stark contrast to Petra Sorling’s claim earlier this month that all the tickets at the World Championships had sold out – the ITTF president had said she was “shocked”, suggesting it was a rare occurrence for sports events held in the Middle East.
“This was a unique phenomenon, we hope to study the causes further,” said the 54-year-old Swede.
Chinese media were quick to claim that tickets in Doha were snapped up by scalpers and could be resold to table tennis fans, in particular those from China desperate to witness the Chinese legion retain their top status in the sport.