An article with the above mentioned title was published in the Wall Street Journal of September 11, 2009 (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574406704026883502-email.html).
In my opinion, one dopey, uninformed statement in the very first paragraph ruined the credibility of what was otherwise an interesting article. What do you think?
Below is the comment I posted on this article:
Although Yuki Bhambri ended up losing in the quarter finals of the rain marred US Open Juniors, the statement in this article that “Yuki Bhambri hails from India, a country whose professional tennis history is only slightly richer than America’s record in cricket.” is ridiculous!
In 1960, Ramanathan Krishnan reached the semi-finals of the men’s singles competition at Wimbledon where he lost to Neale Fraser. He reached the Wimbledon semi-finals again the next year, losing to Rod Laver. Both Fraser and Laver were the eventual champions. Also, Krishnan was a key member of the Indian team which reached the final of the Davis Cup in 1966.
India reached the Davis Cup finals again in 1974 and 1987.
in 1973 Vijay Amritraj (quoted in this article) reached the quarter-final stage at two Grand Slam events. At Wimbledon he lost 7–5 in the fifth set to the eventual champion Jan Kodeš and later that summer at the US Open, lost to Ken Rosewall after having beaten Rod Laver two rounds earlier. Amritraj repeated his feat at Forest Hills in 1974 when he went out in the last eight again to Rosewall after beating Björn Borg in the second round. In 1981 Amritraj again reached the quarterfinals, going out in five sets to Jimmy Connors. He had victories against most of the top players of his day, including John McEnroe at his peak in 1984.
Finally, Ramesh Krishnan reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon once (1986) and the US Open twice (1981 and 1987).
All of the above information could be obtained in a few minutes by doing a simple Google search.
Obviously, if American cricket over the years was any way comparable to Indian tennis, then America would be in the league of Test and One Day International playing nations, at least on par with Bangladesh!
Overall this article is accurate but it has been marred by just one sloppy statement in the beginning which takes away from the credibility of the writers. Hopefully they will do their homework more thoroughly next time before putting pen to paper.
Very good observation, Venky. Overall the article is goodbut asusual the US becomes uneasy when they see smart people from countries like India & elsewhere.
Thanks
Praveen
Reply
I’ve noticed that major journals have become pretty sloppy about fact-checking (owing to budget cuts?) – and this at a time when anyone with a computer can do a lot of research in just a few minutes. Journalists are more likely to make mistakes, and also more likely to be called on them.
Reply