New Delhi: Swedish tennis legend Bjorn Borg left a felicitation ceremony being held on the sidelines of the Bengaluru Open ATP Challenger since Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai was running late.
The chief minister arrived three hours after the scheduled time of 9.30 am and Borg had more important things to do. Like watch his son play.
The event to felicitate Borg and Indian tennis star Vijay Amritraj by the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association (KSLTA) was supposed to be held at 9:30.
By the time Bommai arrived at 11:15 am, Borg had walked out for prior commitments, BBC reported.
Borg, who quit tennis at the age of 27, was in India to watch son Leo play at the Bengaluru Open.
Borg couldn’t wait for Bommai because wild-card entry Leo’s match began at 11 am.
The event, initially scheduled at 9:30 am was moved to 10:15 am to accommodate the CM, “due to some of his other commitments”, Deccan Herald reported.
After Borg left the event to watch his son’s match, the Karnataka CM hung around too for a while as the Swede sat across him with wife Patricia.
KSLTA joint secretary Sunil Yajman was quoted by BBC Hindi saying that the show was cancelled after Amritraj felt it would be “inappropriate” for him to be felicitated alone.
From 1974 to 1981, Borg was the first man in the Open Era to win 11 Grand Slam singles titles, including six at the French Open and five in a row at Wimbledon.
Widely regarded as one of the sport’s all-time greats, Borg won four consecutive French Open championships between 1978 and 1981. He was the first man since 1886 to compete in six consecutive Wimbledon finals. Borg reached the finals of the French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open three times in the same year in 1978, 1980–8, and was undefeated.
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