Culture

Serena Williams Is Dragging A Far-Right Tennis Player From Tennessee Named Tennys

There's a lot of layers to this one.

by Osman Faruqi  25 January 2018
Tennys Sandgren

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One of the most fascinating stories of this year’s Australian Open has been the rise and fall of Tennys Sandgren, the tennis player from Tennessee.

The 26-year-old, who is ranked 97th in the world, burst into the limelight after defeating Stan Wawrinka, ranked ninth, and Dominic Thiem, ranked fifth. But, in one of the year’s most high profile milkshake ducks, it turns out that Sandgren has a history of posting alt-right and homophobic tweets, and he’s now copping a lot of heavy criticism — including from tennis legend Serena Williams.

Yep, it looks like the tennis community has found someone to hate more than Nick Kygrios, and this time it’s actually deserved.

Why Is Everyone Mad At Tennys?

Before we go any further we need to take a second to acknowledge the fact that the bloke’s name is Tennys, he plays tennis, and he’s from Tennessee. In a further twist, Sandgren’s name is only a couple of letters off from being an anagram of Targaryen. Wild.

From now on we will refer to him as Tennis Cubed or Tennis3.

After he beat Thiem on Monday, Tennis3 was asked about his apparent far-right sympathies. His Twitter account followed a number of white nationalist figures, including the former leader of the English Defence League, Tommy Robinson.

He had also posted about the anti-Hillary Clinton conspiracy theory known as Pizzagate, which claimed Clinton was part of a child-sex ring. “It’s sickening and the collective evidence is too much to ignore,” he said.

In 2012 he tweeted “Stumbled into a gay club last night.. my eyes are still bleeding #nooneshouldseethat.” He also once claimed that “51 percent of American Muslims want Sharia law”.

After being questioned about his posts and apparent politics he started deleting the tweets, but the internet doesn’t forget.

The controversy soon attracted international headlines, and when his dream run at the Open was finally over, after he lost to South Korean Hyeon Chung, Tennis3 addressed the matter.

“With a handful of follows and some likes on Twitter, my fate has been sealed in your minds,” he said. “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.”

What Does Serena Williams Have To Do With This?

One of Tennis3‘s since-deleted tweets appeared to personally denigrate Serena Williams by calling her “disgusting”. However, some people suggested that he could have been referring more specifically to an incident where Williams yelled at an opponent.

Regardless, Williams seems to have taken the attack on her seriously. Just as the match between Chung and  Tennis3 she tweeted “Turns channel”.

She followed that up with an even more direct tweet:

Williams’ tweet suggests she thinks Tennis3 owes an apology to the communities he attacked in his tweets, rather than her.

He’s yet to reply, and his Twitter has been scrubbed entirely. It looks like the Australian episode of the Tennis3 saga is over. We look forward to seeing what Tennys gets up to when he’s back in Tennessee.