Australian Open: Tenys Sandgren defends alt-right tweets

Tennys Sandgren deleted 18 months of tweets after his alt-right links came into focus following his charge to the quarter-finals.

Tennys Sandgren celebrates beating Austria's Dominic Thiem in their men's singles fourth round match. Picture: AFP.

After an unlikely charge to the Australian Open quarter-finals, US player Tennys Sandgren — until now known more for his apt name than anything else — has deleted 18 months worth of tweets after his links with right wing activists came under the microscope following his win.

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.

Sandgren, a Trump supporter, said he had deleted the tweets to “move forward” and create a “version of a cleaner start”.

He 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 told reporters.

“I find some of the content interesting.

“But, no, I don’t. Not at all.

“As a firm Christian, I don’t support things like that, no.

“I support Christ and following him.”

Among the deleted tweets was one from November 2016 where Sandgren appeared to back the debunked Pizzagate online 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 at Melbourne Park.

“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.

“That’s not how information works.

“If you watch a news channel, you wouldn’t then say that that person who’s watching a news channel thinks everything that that news channel puts out. You wouldn’t think that.”

Sandgren has also argued online with former US tennis player James Blake about racism in the United States.

“I just don’t know how a country that practices systemic racism elected a black pres, twice,” tweeted Sandgren.

Sandgren told ESPN on Tuesday that it wasn’t specifically the online alt-right content that he found interesting but some individuals’ specific content.”

“(It’s) not really specific alt-right content that I deem of value, I think that’s very incorrect and I don’t find information like that to be of value or to hold onto any of those things,” he said. “So it’s not who I am as a person in any way.”

He said he deleted all of his tweets not because it’s “something that I’m really necessary embarrassed about,” but because he thought that “creating a version of a cleaner start is not a bad call.”

“People can screenshot, save and distribute everything they would like to,” he said. “I know that, and that’ fine. It is what it is. It’s just something that I thought wouldn’t be a bad way to kind of move forward.”

Sandgren, who describes himself as a devout Christian, said he’s also learning and growing as a person and “definitely doesn’t have it all together.”

Sandgren is from Gallatin, Tennessee, and played two years of tennis at the University of Tennessee. His mother is from South Africa. “I’m more than happy to talk with people and let people know how I feel about things,” he said. “I’ve had to put the social media aside for now, I’ll take a look at it and I’ll take the criticism and I’ll take the good with the bad and keep learning and growing as a person and try to move forward.”

AP