Tennys Sandgren's confidence gets boost for NY Open

When Tennys Sandgren arrives at the New York Open this year, he’ll have jumped around 40 positions in the world rankings. That’s because for the second time in his career he’s gone deep into the Australian Open, deeper than any player ranked 100 at the start of January should have gone.

This will be Sandgren’s second consecutive appearance in the New York Open, which runs Feb. 9-17 at NYCB Live’s Nassau Coliseum. He wasn’t so lucky last year here, losing to veteran Paolo Lorenzi in the first round. But he’s likely to have a strong dose of confidence coming off his Australian run in which he lost to Roger Federer in the quarterfinals in five sets, and had seven match points against the all-time great.

For the most part Sandgren has toiled in the shadows of tennis, small tournaments, small crowds, small purses, the spotlight on him no more than a 60-watt bulb. It’s at the Australian Open where he’s given himself a chance to shine, and it was last year in a lead-in tournament at Auckland, New Zealand, where he got his only ATP Tour level victory.

At Melbourne, the underdog has gotten to bare his teeth.

“I haven’t had that many looks and maybe I shouldn’t be here, so I kind of get amped up,” said Sandgren after his disappointing but spirited loss to Federer. “I want to perform, I want to do well, I don’t want to take the time on the court for granted. Getting to play on the big stage, play in front of a lot of people. I’ve played a lot of tennis in front of very few people, so when I get to do that it seems to bring out the best tennis in me. When I do, with the way I serve and some of the offensive/defensive skills I have translate decently in some of these matches.”

His four-match winning streak at the Australian Open was impressive and in what has been fairly limited appearances at the Grand Slams in the 28-year-old Tennessean’s career, he is 5-3 against top-20 players, having been ranked no higher than 41 himself.

He beat eighth seed Matteo Berrettini, the promising Italian, in the second round. Berrettini  lost in the semfinals of the 2019 U.S. Open to Rafael Nadal. He beat American Sam Querrey in the third round and 12th seeded Fabio Fognini in the fourth.  As for losing to the really top guys?

“I tend to lose to guys before I play them,” said Sandgren, with a big belly laugh, in advance of his quarterfinal match against Federer.

It takes a lot to keep chasing the dream when the losses mount and the bank account shrinks. But his runs in the Australian Open and the Auckland win gave him the confidence and the means to keep trying.

“I spent a lot of time in my career not sniffing these opportunities. There are better players than me in juniors who stopped playing because they ran out of money or got injured,” Sandgren said. “I was blessed enough to keep hold of my dream and fulfill it and have the body to do so. Some of the margins were incredibly small, but it worked out.”

And as for the confidence factor, that battle still goes on.

“I felt inferior, I felt as if I was less of a player than I actually was,” Sandgren said. “Just getting to believe in myself and I do actually belong is crucial for competing. But my core belief is definitely higher than it used to be.”

And it’s that attitude he brings to the black courts of the New York Open.