Mumbai: Amidst the celebrations and congratulatory messages, Indian tennis star Sania Mirza created another history after winning the US Open women’s doubles title with Martina Hingis on Sunday.
All was well in the Twitter world with vanilla messages coming from President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and even cricket expert Harsha Bhogle.
Hearty congratulations @MirzaSania @mhingis on winning the U.S. Open women's doubles, well done!
— President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) September 13, 2015
Congratulations @MirzaSania & @mhingis on the phenomenal victory at the @usopen. Your accomplishments make us proud.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 14, 2015
And the purple patch continues. Well done @MirzaSania. Best part about this one was that you made it so predictable.
— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) September 13, 2015But in the wee hours of Monday, social media exploded.
Why?
BBC Sport caused a controversy by tweeting a photograph of Hingis and Sania with the latter’s name missing in the tweet. They tweeted.
Hingis does it again at the #USOpen, taking her Grand Slam tally to 20 http://t.co/12cPMvEluf pic.twitter.com/QsvQP3rzDv
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) September 13, 2015The fact that BBC forgot to name the Indian star did not go down well with the fans.
One fan went to the extent of calling the broadcasters “racist”.
Utter nonsense and disgusting attitude from @BBCNews which didnt mention Sania's name oj purpose, racist cunts. #RacistBBC
— Sathwik Sriram (@sksathwik) September 14, 2015However, what raised the eyebrows wider this time is that they (BBC) commited the crime for the second time.
BBC have a tendency to leave out Martina Hingis' partner's name. During Wimbledon, BBC India left out Sania & now BBC Sport have done d same
— Moulin (@Moulinparikh) September 13, 2015When the duo won the Wimbledon title in July, earlier this year, they’d made the same mistake.
It was pointed out to them by none other than India’s Education Minister Smriti Irani.
BBC also tweeted that Martina Hingis won two events at the US Open but did not mention Sania and Leander Paes (her mixed doubles partner).
In case you missed it earlier Martina Hingis has won two events at this year's #USOpen http://t.co/mbuWZ26kQp pic.twitter.com/DjVoMyOzc9
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) September 14, 2015
