In November 2023, a short 23-second clip of Sumit Nagal’s successful match-point against Italian Stefano Travaglia in the semifinals of the Helsinki ATP Challenger was having an unusually long shelf life on X (formerly Twitter). Instead of being sucked into the social media vortex, it was widely shared, for Nagal was on the cusp of breaking into the coveted ATP top-100.
Underneath the post, though, was an innocuous comment that read: “Greatest Indian male singles player of all time? Who is close to him in the past?” To the average Indian sports fan, the question would have been borderline blasphemous, for the country has produced stalwarts such as Ramanathan Krishnan, Vijay Amritraj and Ramesh Krishnan, to name a few.
