Australian Open tennis star called Tennys from Tennessee denies support for American alt-right

United States' Tennys Sandgren celebrates after defeating Austria's Dominic Thiem. Photo / AP

Tennys Sandgren, whose run to the quarter-finals has been the most unexpected success story of this year's Australian Open, denied on Monday that he is a supporter of the controversial "alt-right" movement in American politics.

A tennis player from Tennessee called Tennys is enough on its own to attract attention.

But Sandgren's social-media feed shows numerous links to right-wing ideologues. On Jan 15, he retweeted a video posted by Nicholas Fuentes, who attended the notorious white nationalist rally in Charlottesville last August.

In 2016, Sandgren responded to a Twitter message about Pizzagate – the conspiracy theory that connected Hilary Clinton to human trafficking and child abuse – with the words "It's sickening and the collective evidence is too much to ignore."

But when asked about his political affiliation, Sandgren replied "I don't [support the alt-right movement]. I find some of the content interesting. But as a firm Christian, I don't support things like that. I support Christ and following Him.

"Who you follow on Twitter I feel doesn't matter even a little bit. What information you see doesn't dictate what you think or believe. 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 person who is watching the news channel thinks everything that news channel puts out."

Before arriving in Melbourne, Sandgren – who is 26, and ranked No. 97 – had played only two grand-slam matches and lost them both. But he scored a superb 6-2, 4-6, 7-6, 6-7, 6-3 win over fifth seed Dominic Thiem on Monday, and thus became arguably the most unlikely quarter-finalist at a major since Martin Verkerk at the 2003 French Open.

"I definitely had a real pinch-me moment," said Sandgren. "Wow, this is hopefully real. If I wake up now, I'm going to be real upset."