Whitewash or yet another oversight? BBC 'forgets' Sania Mirza... again

Did you know that Sania Mirza is the World No 1? Yes, the Indian tennis star is the highest ranked women’s doubles player in the world. This was even before back-to-back Grand Slam triumph at the Wimbledon and US Open this year with Swiss partner Martina Hingis. [caption id=“attachment_2423748” align=“alignleft” width=“375”] Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis in action at US Open. AP[/caption] Yet, when Sania and Hingis won the US Open women’s doubles a few days, two of BBC’s Twitter accounts BBC chose to ignore both her and the fact that any doubles game requires two people. Tweets from both the BBC and BBC Sports accounts said that “Hingis won the US open doubles titles” and “Hingis does it again.” BBC Sport even carried a photograph of the two but didn’t mention Sania’s name. Even the headline of the article read " Martina Hingis wins fifth doubles title of year."  

As expected, this didn’t go down very well on social media especially with Indian Twitteratti. Several people replied to the accounts saying that it takes two to win a doubles match.

What made it worse was the fact that this is the second time that a BBC Twitter account has failed to mention Sania Mirza’s name. [caption id=“attachment_2434430” align=“alignleft” width=“825”] A screenshot of the deleted BBC India tweet. Image credit: @MattBonesteel[/caption] After the Indo-Swiss pair’s Wimbledon triumph, BBC India’s account has tweeted “Hingis wins Wimbledon doubles final.” Considering that it was an Indian handle that missed Sania’s name, they received instant backlash,with even HRD Minister Smriti Irani pointing out the error.

BBC India later deleted the tweet and posted a corrected version.

The US Open was Sania’s fifth Grand Slam title and second with Hingis. She has previously won three Mixed Doubles title as well. Not to mention her several medals for India as well the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, India’s highest sports honour, that she was awarded this year. Here’s hoping that the next time Sania-Hingis win something, both get the credit for it.