Furious and outraged reactions of Indian fans came pouring in on Twitter and Facebook, after a website tennisworldusa.org reported that Maria Sharapova had no idea about who cricket legend, Sachin Tendulkar was.
Sharapova was reportedly asked, " Sachin Tendulkar was the other person who came in at the same time as David. Do you know who Sachin is?" To which the French Open winner replied: "I don't."
Soon after, outraged fans took to Twitter and Facebook to express their shock. Jingoistic fans with the purpose of teaching the Five-time grand slam winner a lesson, even started a ‘Who is Maria Sharapova’ twitter trend.
The Tennis star’s Faceook page that has nearly 13.6 million likes was trashed with abusive and insulting jibes at the five-time grand slam winner.
The web since then has seen thousands of tweets and posts against the tennis star. Memes have been made by these fans casting the French Open winner in a bad light.
While a majority of the Twitter population were seen bashing the tennis star, some did come out in support on twitter.
With reactions as harsh as these one would deem it absolutely unnecessary and unfair to crucify Sharapova over a remark like that. Considering how cricket as a sport is played in just 10 countries, it is highly likely that legends of the game even as famous as Sachin Tendulkar might go unnoticed in other parts of the world.
Interestingly, the little master is known to be good friends with Roger Federer, whose match he had gone to see at the Wimbledon.