The Australian Open has been bonkers. Everyone thought we were heading towards another Rafa Nadal-Roger Federer Men’s final, with only a few known quantities able to give Nadal and Federer some problems. Rafa retired injured in his quarterfinal match though, and Federer hasn’t had to play any of the guys who could have given him a headache, with David Goffin, Juan Martin del Potro, Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka all crashing out in earlier rounds (all of those dudes were on Roger’s side of the draw). Instead, the last guys standing on Roger’s side of the draw were Hyeon Chung, a South Korean wunderkind, and Tennys Sandgren, a 26-year-old American who was barely top-100 in the world.
As Sandgren progressed through the tournament, people were like “yay, finally someone new in American men’s tennis!” And then they were like “let’s look at his social media to figure out what kind of guy he is.” That’s when all the problems started. Turns out, he’s a far-right Trump supporter who seems to have a lot of sympathies and loyalties to the Alt-Right, even having an online friendship with one of those neo-Nazis with Tiki torches who marched in Charlottesville last year. He also used derogatory language to describe transgender and LGBTQ people. Before his quarterfinal, he deleted many of his questionable tweets but of course people had screencapped them (go here to see). He also tweeted “Any day Serena loses is a good day” and this:
Lots of valid, fair scrutiny of Tennys Sandgren on here, but one damning common screengrab is incomplete and perhaps misleading. It was a link to an article about Serena screaming toward Vinci, not just photos of her.
Feel free to still disapprove, but get the whole picture. pic.twitter.com/7PI6grjmCi
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) January 24, 2018
So when Sandgren’s quarterfinal started last night, this is what Serena tweeted:
Turns channel
— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) January 24, 2018
Which is a perfect burn. Anyway, long story short, Tennys Sandgren lost his QF to the Korean wunderkind. In the post-match interview, Sandgren was asked about all of his Alt-Right tweets-and-deletes, and dude had the audacity to deliver this pre-written speech:
“You seek to put people in these little boxes so that you can order the world in your already assumed preconceived ideas. You strip away any individuality for the sake of demonising by way of the collective. With a handful of follows and some likes on Twitter, my fate has been sealed in your minds. To write an edgy story, to create sensationalist coverage, there are a few lengths you wouldn’t go to to mark me as the man you desperately want me to be.
“You would rather perpetuate propaganda machines instead of researching information from a host of angles and perspectives while being willing to learn, change, and grow. You dehumanise with pen and paper and turn neighbour against neighbour. In so doing, you may actually find you’re hastening the hell you wish to avoid, the hell we all wish to avoid. It is my firm belief that the highest value must be placed on the virtue of each individual, regardless of gender, race, religion or sexual orientation. It’s my job to continue on this journey with the goal of becoming the best me I can and to embody the love Christ has for me, for I answer to Him and Him alone.
“You strip away any individuality for the sake of demonising by way of the collective.” Easy, Ayn Rand. This is the stupidest argument for one’s alt-right douchebaggery: I WAS JUST BEING AN INDIVIDUAL! Yeah, an individual neo-Nazi sympathizer. To be clear… Tennys Sandgren has the right to believe whatever he wants to believe and vote however he wants to vote and tweet whatever he wants to tweet. It’s a free country. But of course journalists are going to ask him about it, because he was out there, retweeting Alt-Right conspiracies and being a homophobic douchebag. “Not ready for primetime” is what this is – and I kind of hope he crawls back under a rock after this.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
His name is Tennys????
Nomen est omen. A guy named Tennys is a tennis player but now also failed tennis spelling = failed tennis match.
How many times do you think a teacher called him “Tennies” by mistake?👟👟 Dumb name for a dumb ass. Glad he got his ass beat.
Isn’t he also from Tennessee?
Tennis-playing Tennys from Tennessee?
This is awesome (in a bad way).
He claims to be named after his Swedish great-grandfather.
I don’t really follow tennis and this is probably mean but dang, is that a case of a face matching the inside or what? If you showed me a bunch of pics and asked me to pick out the white supremacist I’d choose him in a heartbeat.
I love Tennis twitter! We have been on him for a while screen-capping the hell out of his TL. Those aren’t the worst tweets by the way. At one point he was arguing with James Blake that racism doesn’t exist in the US. Blake, a black ex tennis player, have recently been jumped on by cops. His crime was standing. In the street. At night :///
For the americans folks out here, I hate to inform you that most american male players are trumpsters and they were up in arms defending him against the “bullying” because he is such a nice guy ya”ll!
James Blake? The guy who was assaulted by the NYPD just for being black? Wow. Which American male players defended Sandgren?
@Tina for one Isner who is a massive douche who also hides behind the nice guy shtick. Apparently being polite absolves you from everything. Anyway, Ryan Harrison is trumpster so is Steve Johnson (he too defended Tennys). Jared Donaldson, Tommy Paul and actually all the up and coming american male players are trump supporters and the follow and retweets alt right and sometimes even white supremacist accounts. On the Ladies side Coco and Cici Bellis.
Thanks Diana. That is a depressing list.
Ugh. Diana, thanks for the info. I was happier when I didn’t know that, but still better to be informed. :-/
I was so happy to see that Tennis Twitter got screenshots of his most vile tweets before he did his mass deletion. Not only did he call Serena “disgusting” but whenever she lost he would tweet how happy he was that she lost.
Don’t even get me started on how the ESPN commentators defended him last night, how most of the current American players (outside of Serena, Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys, and Nicole Gibbs) are defending him, and how he gave an angry, bratty, whiny “statement” that he read from his phone before his press conference last night. He sounded like a 15 year old who just discovered Ayn Rand for the first time.
I hope this is the last we hear from him.
@Diana:
Thanks for getting that info. All the white American tennis players (current players) are Trumpsters except for Nicole Gibbs. If anyone knows otherwise, you can correct me on that.
Kinda not surprised as tennis is mainly a rich person’s sport….
And I agree that he has a douchey white supremacist look to him. Might be the hair and his weird facial expressions..
He looks a bit like if Paul Ryan and Stephen Miller had a baby…
Had no idea almost all the American men players are Trump supporters. I’m glad I’ve never been fans of them. Just hope Jack Sock isn’t one too.
Although I’m always happy when Serena loses, for one reason – Steubenville. There is no way she should get a pass for that.
Serena apologised for those comments.
Is Tennys pronounced ‘Tennis’? I preferred my life 5 minutes ago before I knew this guy existed.
Yes, it is. Apparently, it’s a family name.
lmao!
Ha! Thank you, you are an inspiration.
LOL
When all else fails, just say you’re good with Jeebus and you don’t have to explain or justify any of the hateful shiz you poster on Twitter.
I was so glad he got beaten handily by an Asian player at the Asia-Pacific slam. Tennis is a truly global sport with no place for the hate-mongering Sandgren. Sponsors need to lose his number. Meanwhile, Chung is living his best life. It’s heartening to see his success.
I love Chung! I hope the Chung-Federer semi is intense. The kid plays like a young Djokovic.
Me, too! I hoped he’d build on the momentum after he won Milan so easily. His game, like Djokovic’s, has little margin for error. But if Chung stays fit, he can definitely hit the top 10 as Nadal predicted.
I view Kyle Edmund like Pablo Carreno Busta…..got a good draw but can’t take him seriously.I wish Chung was playing Clic instead so we could have a Chung Fed final.
Ashley, I like Kyle Edmund, honestly! I turned around on him when he bageled Nadal on clay last year – that was amazing! (Of course Kyle ended up losing, because Nadal-on-clay, but still.) But I agree, PCB is a nothingburger who keeps getting fortuitous draws.
I really hope he beats Federer ( and then hopefully meets Čilić in the finals and loses) beacuse seeing the same faces every year became so boring. Plus with the whole day/night match thing this year just made my dislike for Federer greater.
I was going to say. Anyone taking him out would have been great but the fact that it was a POC? Beautiful.
I have been rooting for Chung all tournament. His game is so crisp and clean. I love his bold play and he is living his best life right now. What blows my mind is that there are no Korean media members there to see him play.
It was especially delicious because some of Sandgren’s now-deleted tweets had him mocking Asians.
Chung has to take the AO, seeing how he outplayed Djokovic I can’t see how there is anyone left who can match him. He knows all their moves better than they do.
They’re so sensitive, these Trump supporters, aren’t they? Delicate little flowers who can’t stand it when people don’t like them. Easily triggered and so offended when you disagree. Snowflakes.
I also can’t stand their whole “you need to look at all sides and look at information that makes you uncomfortable.” They say that stuff because they assume *they* are correct in all things, and you only disagree with them because you haven’t done your research. The good faith all-sides research ethos does not apply to them.
I want to vomit when people pull that sh*t. Of course I think I’m right most of the time, who doesn’t? But what’s right for me is not automatically right for everyone. It’s not about research, it’s about your basic outlook on life, your values, and what you think is important. The same information can lead to different opinions. Do I want to convince other people of my views? Yes. But I don’t assume that they “just don’t know”. They might know and still suck. Although I doubt most Trumpsters really have done any research. After all, you can’t trust alternative statistics blah blah.
They think any occasion where they and their ‘beliefs’ aren’t treated with respect and acceptance everywhere they go is some type of horrific persecution. Meanwhile, they’re all about persecuting other people just for existing.
It’s really absurd when Alt-Righters start bitching about “propaganda machines”, considering that is EXACTLY what the Alt-Right/Neo-Nazis are about.
It’s not that he has no right to be an alt-right douche. The problem is that he doesn’t own it. Why? Because he’s ashamed of it, and is incapable of standing for all the things he said.
He seems so punchable. Im still all for punching Nazis
Me too. I said that on my FB last year and someone I knew from high school got mad being she was a Trumpster. I was like, “Hello, remember me from Mrs. Barnhart’s class, the Jew?” That shut her up.
Brilliant!
Same. I can’t even pretend to be sympathetic about some Nazi getting not even 1/10 of the violence they promote.
Ugh. And they used to say Kanye West ranted a lot… God. As we say down here in Aus about his kind, “What an utter gronk.” I hope he’s absolutely fuming that the brilliant Chung beat him.
my god it is so FUCKING embarrassing to be an american right now. i’m going to hide under a rock – please come get me when this is all over.
No, Lizzie, come back! It’s Tennys (bwarghhhh) who needs to hide under a rock.
It’s ok, Lizzie. You don’t need that rock. We do understand that only SOME Americans are like this. The ones I’ve met have been absolutely lovely, and so far from this tosser, that I’m pretty sure they’d be embarrassed, too.
GTFOH.
STAY OUT OF TENNIS ALT-RIGHT!!!!!
Phew.
He is rather unfortunate looking. Why are so many of these racists so hideous looking? Is it a case of the outside matching the inside? It’s the same here in England.
I’d say it’s a self fulfilling loop. Young men who don’t have a lot (girlfriends, looks, social skills, money) desperately want to fit in and can be seduced by the charisma of white supremacist leaders telling them they are special.
@Sam and @bananapanda: I fully agree!
And its a mystery why I am choosing my Canadian side for the Winter Olympics. All kidding aside I hope there aren’t any alt right aka Nazis competing 🙁 .
All of NBC’s promo ads for the Olympics make me want to throw shit at my TV. I know that’s probably unfair to the athletes who work so damn hard to get to the Olympics–it’s not their fault–but I’m just not feeling the patriotism right now.
I read the Washington Posts story on his family and the controversy. Apparently they hail from South Africa.
As someone who did some some business with the region and did plenty of reading on Afrikaners- their racism cannot even touch ours, which says a lot. Hopefully, it’s not the case here.
A lot of the American men on tour have espoused the kind of views that you might expect from a group of rich privileged frat boy types, but this tool is on a whole different level. F*ck Tennys forever, this loss couldn’t have happened to a more deserving schmuck. It’s unfortunate how tone deaf the tennis establishment has been about promoting this guy as he progressed through the tournament.
Poor little Nazi snowflake. Diddums.
So glad you covered this story. Tennys has abhorrent views that aren’t just contained in a few follows and retweets despite his claim. The Serena tweet wasn’t even his worse although I love her shade last night. My personal favorite of his was when he tweeted that he “accidentally walked into a gay club” (I don’t know how one does that by the way. They’re usually named something peen related like C*ckpit or C*ckadoodle Do), said he couldn’t unsee what he saw, and used a derogatory term for transpeople. “But it’s only a couple of follows!” Sure, Jan.
I’m thrilled the media and the fans have not let him off the hook but I’m disappointed that the official social media pages of tennis tournaments and outlets like ATP, USTA, CitiOpen, and Tennis Channel have provided him with support and/or positive coverage within the past 5 days. I’ve reached out to them to urge them to release a statement denouncing hate speech and only the CitiOpen has replied back to me. None of them have denounced his statements publicly. It’s really disheartening and does not entice me to follow American tennis. The Euro boys (for the most part) know to shut their mouths on these subjects! Just be cute and play great tennis!! Go Chung!
This a$$hat has been acting the fool for years, he’s just been doing it on the lower-level Challenger tour where it’s much less open to scrutiny (because no one cares about Challengers). Glad his ickness has been dragged out in the open.
Chung has been and remains the only member of this so-called “next gen” group who shows any actual potential or impressive talent, so I’m doubly pleased that it was him who sent this goof packing.
I respectfully disagree but Shapo and Zverev have huge futures for themselves. The rest seem to be disappointments. Chung has been flying under the radar until the Next Gen Finals where he proved he should be taken seriously and AO where he proved he can play with the big boys. And he’s a white supremacist-slayer too!! I’m rooting for Chung!
I disagree. I’ve been lucky enough to see Rublev play in person. He’s got loads of talent. If he can shore up the mental side, he’ll be top 15 in a year. I’m also excited by Felix Auger-Aliassime. He’s still quite young, but he’s got all the right pieces for an impressive career on tour.
“…for I answer to Him and Him alone.”
That phrase alone right there tells me all I need to know about this person.
He’s like the ugly love child of Michael Douglas and Woody Harrelson.
I went to the link to see the tweets & ended up seeing that Isner had made some terrible comments too. He basically defended Tennys by saying “social justice warriors chill out”! Ugh.
I saw Isner liked Bill Maher’s “MeCarthysm” tweet too, ugh. I had no idea he was like this.
*cackles delight at him losing*
Don’t come for my girl, Serena; don’t spew hateful homophobic language; don’t trade in despicable alt-right conspiracy theories and expect me to be anything other than delighted that your ass ain’t coming anywhere near a Majors podium.
Backtracked when he realized his views would cost him a fortune is lost sponsor dollars.