Twitter and Facebook users were outraged as the news of Maria Sharapova not knowing Indian cricket’s master blaster Sachin Tendulkar went viral.

The Russian lawn tennis ace found herself in the eye of a social media storm over her saying she doesn't know who Tendulkar is to tennisworldusa.org website.

The website after an interview with Sharapova said, “Sachin Tendulkar may be the greatest cricket batsman in history and one of the legends on the sporting world. But French Open champion Maria Sharapova admitted that she did not know who he was during her press conference at Wimbledon on Saturday.”

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 she replied: "I don't."

Don’t know if the Master Blaster took note of this, but soon after the social media took notice, #who is Maria Sharapova started trending by on the micro-blogging website.

Some took a jibe posting Sachin’s pictures and said, “Who is Maria Sharapova? This is Sachin Tendulkar who respects his game. Learn from him.”

Tendulkar, who retired from cricket last year, was in the Royal Box on Saturday along with many other sportsmen including footballer David Beckham and golfer Ian Poulter. But Sharapova, a five-time Grand Slam champion, said that while she has met Beckham on a few occasions, she was not familiar with the Indian cricket legend.

While some got offended at Sharapova not knowing the God of Indian cricket and wrote: “The Girl who said God doesn't exist. Who is Maria Sharapova”….and some compared the number of likes Maria Sharapova (13,701,913 likes) and Sachin Tendulkar have received.

Support for Sharapova

However some came in support of the tennis star saying, “Only insecure idiots can outrage over Sharapova ' s ignorance of Sachin. Does it make either a lesser player or sporting icon?”

“Sharapova doesn't know Tendulkar? "Shocking!" say Indians, most of who couldn't name the CMs of our own north-eastern states”.

“Jingoistic Sachin Tendulkar fans trending - Who is Maria Sharapova. Guys the joke is on us.Attacking her shows #Indians in such poor light.”

Sachin’s friend and cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle tweeted, “amused and appalled in equal measure by the reactions from people on the sharapova-sachin non-issue. we are not the centre of the earth!!”

Lighter side

On the other hand, Twitterati and Facebook users also took to some lighter side of the issue. Faking news website said:#fakingnews..Sharapova does not know who is Sachin Tendulkar.On further questioning she revealed that she was an atheist.

Others said: Sachin Tendulkar is trying to find out if any Russian sportsperson is conferred "Russia Ratna" award !!

Interestingly enough Sachin is known to be good friends with Tennis star Roger Federer.

And also, India being a largely cricket playing nation, Indians are still not aware that cricket is played in just about 10 countries, while Tennis scores much higher as it is played in more countries than cricket for sure.

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