Tennessee Tennys
The real action happened off the court in Melbourne, with politics and fines dominating the headlines.
Donald Trump supporter Tennys Sandgren has deleted 18 months worth of tweets after his political views were put under the microscope following his unlikely charge to the Australian Open tennis Grand Slam tournament quarter-finals.
After downing No 5 seed Dominic Thiem on Monday to move into the last eight at Melbourne Park, the 26-year-old Sandgren was grilled on his seeming support for the alt-right movement in the United States.
“Tennys from Tennessee” said he found some of the online content “interesting” but that he did not support the movement.
“No, I don’t. I don’t,” he said. “I find some of the content interesting. But, no, I don’t [support it]. Not at all.
“As a firm Christian, I don’t support things like that, no.”
Among the deleted tweets was one from November 2016 where Sandgren appeared to back the debunked Pizzagate on-line conspiracy which had linked Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to a supposed child sex abuse ring at a Washington pizzeria. Earlier this month, he retweeted a video from white nationalist Nicholas Fuentes.
“Who you follow on Twitter, I feel like doesn’t matter even a little bit,” Sandgren said. “What information you see doesn’t dictate what you think or believe and I think it’s crazy to assume that.
“To say ‘well he’s following X person so he believes all the things that this person believes’, I think that’s ridiculous.”
After deleting 18 months worth of tweets on Monday night, his most recent one is now from June 23, 2016 which reads: “Freedom wins #Brexit”.
The American world No 97 plays South Korean Hyeon Chung in the quarter-finals today.