Chetan Bhagat’s tweet praising tennis player Sumit Nagal’s performance against Swiss great Roger Federer has not gone down well with netizens.
Many Twitter users have criticised the 45-year-old author for saying that he grew up being told that “India has no chance in singles tennis at the global level”, NDTV reported on Wednesday.
Bhagat was tweeting to praise 22-year-old Nagal’s first set win against Federer. “Grew up being told that India has no chance in singles tennis at the global level. Just now @nagalsumit from my country won a set against The Roger Federer at the #USOpen. One day, India will win the Grand Slam too. Go Sumit Go,” he had tweeted on Tuesday.
Netizens were quick to slam him for his tweet, asking if the author was aware of names like Vipul Amritraj, Leander Paes, and Mahesh Bhupathi.
“How much nonsense can you spew Mr Bhagat? I grew up in an India where the Amritraj brothers were international giants and young men and women confidently aspired to international tennis careers. You’ve been living under some obscure rock,” one Twitter user responded.
“You haven’t heard about players like Paes, Vijay Amritraj, Ramanathan Krishnan, Ramesh Krishnan? Grow up mate. Sumit has done well and that is great, but he is not the first,” another user commented.