Legendary Swedish tennis player Bjorn Borg chose to walk away from a ceremony honouring him in Bengaluru after Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai arrived late at an event to felicitate him.
Borg waited for the Chief Minister to arrive and for the ceremony to start on Tuesday morning at the Karnataka Lawn Tennis Association (KSLTA) courts but he left the ceremony venue to watch his son play at the Bengaluru Open, an ATP Challenger event.
CM Bommai, who was set to felicitate Borg along with Indian tennis great Vijay Amritraj at 9:30 am arrived at the KSLTA courts and turned up only at 11:00 am. Borg visited the ceremony hall twice in the morning, hoping that the felicitation program would start but the same did not happen.
By the time Bommai arrived, the multiple Grand Slam winner left the hall to watch his son's first-round match. To make up for the same, the CM also watched the match from the VIP area while Borg and his wife sat at the other end. Leo Borg lost the first-round match 6-2, 6-3 to Hsu Yu-hsiou.
CM Bommai was not able to make it to the event on time due to other commitments, reports said, and the felicitation ceremony was eventually cancelled.
KSLTA joint secretary Sunil Yajaman, however, said that both Borg and Amritraj would be honoured by CM Bommai at his residence on a later date. "Both of them will be felicitated at the chief minister's office tomorrow or the day after," Yajaman was quoted as saying by BBC on Wednesday.
Borg did sign his photograph at the Hall of Fame at KSLTA during a dinner hosted by Amritraj on Tuesday.
Speaking about his son's tennis ambitions during the Chennai Open ATP Challenger event last week, he said, "Leo has his own team. He is very motivated and works really hard on and off the court. We have a very good relationship. I ask him if he wants to know anything about tennis, and he says, 'I have nothing to ask you!' He is hungry for tennis."
The teenager lost the first round in Chennai after a hard-fought battle with Serbia's Hamad Medjedovic.
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