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Lo Hoi-ying

Chinese table tennis star Fan Zhendong scraped through to the men’s singles semi-final after a pulsating contest against Japan’s Tomokazu Harimoto on Thursday, but their intense match turned Chinese social media into a hotbed for debate.
Harimoto, 21, was born in Japan’s Miyagi prefecture to Chinese parents and was naturalised as a Japanese citizen in 2014.
His parents, Zhang Yu and Zhang Ling, are both former table tennis players from Sichuan, China, but moved to Japan in 1998. His mother had represented the Chinese team at the 43rd World Table Tennis Championships.
Fan, who bagged silver in Tokyo, wiped out a two-game deficit before outlasting Harimoto 4-3 in 68 minutes to take an epic victory.
Harimoto accepted defeat graciously in a postgame interview with Chinese media.

An extreme hard victory, trailing 0-2 and 2:3, ultimately won 4-3 against Japanese player Harimoto Tomokazu. His parents were both Chinese table tennis players, but he chose to become a Japanese citizen, which can be seen as a "traitor" in Eastern culture.
Fan Zhendong is great! pic.twitter.com/nP9q8tXdZV
— DaiWW (@BeijingDai) August 1, 2024

“In terms of capability, maybe I am still not as good as him. He is better than me,” he said in fluent Mandarin with a slight Japanese accent.
He also later posted on social media that he gave his all for the past three years, but that was still not enough.
“It means that I am still not worthy of being a singles medallist or champion with my abilities. The only thing I can do is to make myself worthy of being a champion in the next four years,” he wrote.
While Chinese netizens agreed both Fan and Harimoto put up a strong fight, his background caused controversy when some even labelled him as a traitor to the country.
“If he was not in the Japan team, I would respect him. But as a fellow Sichuanese, I cannot accept that he gave himself up to side with the Japanese,” one user’s Weibo comment, which garnered over 80,000 likes, read.
“I agree, naturalising into any country is fine, except Japan,” another wrote.

However, many were quick to point out that Harimoto never spent time in China, while pointing to his parents for migrating to Japan.
“Harimoto is not Sichuanese, he is a Japanese born and raised in Japan,” one user rebutted.
Internet users also praised Harimoto’s sportsmanship.
“Frankly he has a strong mentality and has clarity of mind. He is getting slammed by both Japanese and Chinese but could still hold up to the pressure,” a comment read.
The result of Thursday’s game was a major relief for Chinese fans, after top seed Wang Chuqin suffered a shock exit in the round of 32.
Fan’s defeat would have been a huge disappointment for China, as they have finished on the podium of the men’s singles in every Games since 1992.
Fan will next take on 17-year-old French prodigy Felix Lebrun in the semi-finals.


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Chinese table tennis star Fan Zhendong scraped through to the men’s singles semi-final after beating Japan’s Tomokazu Harimoto


Chinese table tennis star Fan Zhendong scraped through to the men’s singles semi-final after a pulsating contest against Japan’s Tomokazu Harimoto.
