Sandgren overcomes many ups and downs to land in Paris

Tennys Sandgren is a tennis player from Tennessee who competed for the University of Tennessee.

Yes, he has heard the jokes a million times before. He is actually named after his great-grandfather, but the world No. 112 is more than just a unique name.

At the Savannah Challenger earlier this month, Sandgren was on the verge of the greatest milestone of his career thus far. He tried not to think about it too much, but the 25-year-old was leading the French Open Wild Card Challenge standings—for which the winner earns a berth into the main draw of the French Open.

A win against Henri Laaksonen in the quarterfinals was crucial to keeping his dream of a first Grand Slam main draw appearance alive.

Sandgren went up a set and 5-4 with a match point in hand. But Laaksonen won the next three games to force a third set. For the first time that week, Sandgren started thinking about what was at stake.

“I was kind of mentally struggling a little bit at that point to find the fight and the motivation to just kind of shrug it off and keep going,” Sandgren told Baseline. “That was something that I actually thought about. ‘There is more at stake than just this match and you’ll be kicking yourself if you don’t put everything you have into this set.’”

Sandgren would face break points while serving at 5-5. He survived that game—during which he was worrying more about avoiding the glaring sun than anything else—and sealed the win in a third-set tiebreaker.

With Dennis Novikov’s loss to Tommy Paul that same round, the French Open wild card was officially Sandgren’s.

“It’s been a long road, ups and downs. Sometimes feels like more downs than ups,” Sandgren said. “But I always thought that if I kept developing, kept working on my game and kept improving that it was something that I could accomplish.”

In the semifinals, Sandgren survived another third-set tiebreaker (this time against Paul), saving a match point for good measure.

Surprisingly, the next day's final wasn’t the only thing on his mind. Sandgren had a final due on Sunday for an online Chinese and Japanese politics class that he was taking toward his Tennessee degree (he left university after two years to turn pro in 2011).

It was Saturday night and Sandgren didn’t have the stamina to get it done that evening. With the final scheduled for 3:00 p.m. the next day, he had more to worry about than winning a title.

“I was like, ‘Well shoot. If something goes wrong or we get delayed or it rains, I can be backed against the wall here and then I’m getting a zero,” Sandgren said.

He had no choice but to wake up earlier on Sunday morning, grab a coffee and get it done: "It went smoothly. It went fine, so it worked out," he said.

It is safe to say Sandgren hit winners on and off the court in Georgia that week, as he would go on to beat Joao Pedro Sorgi in straight sets in the final. The win was his second ATP Challenger of the season and third overall.

Sandgren's efforts earned him his career-high ranking to go with the French Open spot, but life as a professional hasn’t been easy. He underwent hip surgery for a labrum tear in March of 2014 which sidelined him for five months.

Injury setbacks combined with the rigors of life on the ATP Challenger and ITF Pro Circuit tours were not easy to deal with. Money has been hard to come by on the lower rungs of the tour, while the crowds are comparable to those of local junior tournaments. He has won 11 ITF Futures titles, but only just qualified for his first ATP main draw earlier this year in Houston. He has also appeared in 12 Grand Slam qualifying draws, losing his opener on nine occasions.

But Sandgren always held out hope, and stuck with it.

Now, he not only has his best opportunity yet in Paris next week, but he is also excited to make his Wimbledon debut (in qualifying). Closing in on the Top 100, he's even hoping to move high enough in the rankings to earn a direct entry into the US Open main draw at the end of the summer.

“It’s exciting, it’s definitely exciting,” Sandgren said. “It’s something that I’ve worked for for a long, long time—to have it so close, it’s really great.”

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