At the broadcast on May 28, Zekken was asked about the match between the Heretics and Edward Gaming team at the play-off VCT Masters Shanghai. At that time, the player answered: “I'm a Hater. I'm a China Hater” (I do not have faith in the Chinese teams), then choose the Heretics team as the winning team.
However, many people understood Zekken's saying that he “hated” China. Later, the player was attacked violently from the community when a series of Chinese comments criticized Sentinels's Duelist. Many people even posted a picture of Zekken with monkeys and called him “Bobo” (stupid in the Philippines) because the player was originally from the Philippines.
Despite being defended by many fans, Zekken still received a lot of criticism and the player himself had to speak up on social network X, explaining that his sentence meant “not trusting Chinese VCT teams in this tournament” but not intending to distinguish or hate China. At the end of the post, Zekken also asserted that he would pay more attention to his words in the future.
Zekken was born in 2005, is a professional Valorant player for Sentinels as Duelist. The player joined the organization at the end of 2022 but the competition was not successful in 2023. However, by 2024, Zekken and the team won the VCT Americas: Kickoffs as well as ascended the throne at VCT MASTERS Madrid. At VCT Americas Stage 1, Sentinels was suddenly eliminated from the group stage, thereby missing the opportunity to attend VCT Masters Shanghai.
