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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
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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.
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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.
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