By Marco Lorenzoni
2022 has been tough for Tennys Sandgren, a former world No.41. Just three years ago he had seven match points against Federer and was ever so close to reaching the semifinal at the Australian Open, his first in a Slam. Due to injuries, he missed most of the last season and his ranking has dropped. A few weeks ago he won a Challenger event in Las Vegas and he is still eager to compete and succeed in a comeback to the top.
With 2022 being your first year in a while since you played only challenger events, what are the main differences in the level between the challenger tour and the ATP tour?
I feel that when I was playing the ATP tour the draws were a little bit more unpredictable because you could play guys like Felix (Auger-Aliassime), Holger (Rune), or Shapovalov that out class you, but at the same time you can face players that are not particularly motivated that day because they are not trying to feed their family with that tournament. I feel that the guys that are ranked generally between 40 and 80 are very consistent in their results week after week and they wait until there is a hole in the draw to get in and make a semi-final or a very good result. Challengers are hard, but even if the top guys are not present there are a lot of good players and you have to bring a mental level. If you don’t you are not going to be able to win. Every match is a dog fight.
In the last few years, you’ve played a lot on the ATP tour. You’ve reached two quarterfinals at the Australian Open and the fourth round at Wimbledon. Is it difficult for you to find motivation in these challenger events when there can be five spectators during a match and the prize money is a lot lower?
Sometimes it is hard, but I feel it is more difficult when you are ranked around 100 and you are going back and forth between challengers and ATP events. One week you are playing for $10,000 and 30/40 points per match, while the week after you’re playing for $500 and seven points. For me right now this is where I am and so I have to be hungry, and there is no way around going back to the place I want to be. I have to play well in these types of events and progress and get my ranking back up, otherwise if I am not motivated and not humble enough I should just retire. I can say I had two careers, for years I played futures and challengers and for years I was able to play in the biggest tournaments. Even if I made some good runs in slams I am used to playing in this context and I know that this is part of the sport.
I know that you like to drive from one Challenger to the other when you play in the US, so I wonder if you enjoy the more intimate atmosphere of these smaller events?
When you go to the US Open for example, you have to plan for a lot more time. The strings are over here, practice courts are in a different area and everything is spread out. It is awesome because playing grand slams is one of the best parts of the sport, but it is a different atmosphere to come here. I am able to park right out here, I walk to the practice court, the nice lady is giving me balls and water to go on the court with and it definitely feels more intimate. It is a more personal version of the sport. Actually some challengers can get a decent amount of people, 4-5 hundred, but most get an average of 10-100 people per night. The intimate atmosphere is pretty cool, I am from Tennessee and like to drive to Columbus, Charleston, etc. It reminds me of when I used to play Junior tournaments and you have to drive a lot around the entire country. When you become a professional you drive way less, even if in Europe the distances seem closer. There you drive two hours and here you drive 7 because everything is a lot more spread out here. But at the end it is so easy. You grab a cup of coffee, listen to some nice music and enjoy the scenery.
A few months ago you and Mikael Torpegaard (former ATP 166) released a music album called “dystopian melancholy”. How do two professional tennis players get the idea of making an album and which were your musical inspirations?
He is a really good guitarist and he was part of a death metal band. We were living together for the first six months of the year and travelling a lot. We wrote lyrics inspired by life on the road, for how fun it can be it is also very tough with all the losses and the other difficulties. Normally when we had a little bit of time we would grab a pack of “TRULIS” and then you can really start to write. We put in the album the five or six songs that we usually liked to play and being in Nashville there are so many places where you can record. We both agreed on putting it out, it was a lot of fun. One of the songs that I wrote was “shadow theatre”, it was during the pandemic when people were forcing others to do things without an apparent reason. What stuff the government can make you do, at what point you say no to live in modern society. There were places like in Australia that if you didn’t get vaccinated you would have lost your job. In fact, I wasn’t able to play the Australian Open but luckily where I lived things were more normal. The songs that we wrote were a good outlet to express what we were going through. Right now it is harder to make more music because Mikael is not on the road right now but we are still working on some stuff.
I appreciate that you are a player who is more outspoken about your ideas. Do you think there is too much political correctness in modern-day tennis, especially with the top-ranking players?
It’s not just in tennis but it’s everywhere. If you say the wrong thing or you offend somebody, sponsors don’t want to touch you because they are trying to sell their products. At the end of the day it’s only a small percentage of people that get upset about this political correctness. Everyone else doesn’t really care because they have jobs, families and lives. It’s impossible to try to live without saying anything offensive because someone somehow would always disagree. It’s not a fun way to live, you can’t live controlling every word that you say. At the end of the day, if people spoke their mind more there wouldn’t be so much of this culture. I have heard a top player saying that it would be nice if other top players would speak their mind more. When I heard that I just laughed, it would be nice but it would be tough if a top player couldn’t get sponsors or make money out of their career. Also during a press conference if you misstep people are ready to twist your words. When you talk sometimes you may have something else in your mind, you are trying to formulate your thoughts but nobody is perfect. I don’t blame anyone for not trying to go out of the normal because if you play a tough match and you go to a press conference it’s so easy to just say the normal things because you know what they are. As soon as you start talking about how you feel or controversial stuff you need to be careful. If I had contracts worth millions I don’t know if I would be that outspoken, I was never in that position so I don’t know how I would act.
What are your goals for 2023?
I would really like to play again in the main draw of grand slams, I would love to have that opportunity again. That means that I have to have a good stretch of wins in Challenger events so I can get my ranking back up. After that it would be interesting to see if I can make it again into the top 50. If that should happen I’d be impressed with myself because I know how much it takes to fight every week in these types of small events. I feel that the general level of players is higher.
