Tennys Sandgren arrived in Melbourne having never won a match at a Grand Slam championship. Today, following his 6-4, 7-6(5), 6-3 quarter-final loss to South Korea’s Hyeon Chung, the American enjoys a higher profile.
“The net felt like it was about 12-feet high today,” said Sandgren. “[I was] just struggling to serve the way that I wanted to. But I also knew that I had to serve well and serve to my spots correctly, because he returns so well.
“It was amazing. He's a fantastic player. This is the second time I played him now in two weeks [also ASB Classic]. It's such a fun challenge because he does so many cool things, with how he moves and how he returns and how he plays with his forehand. So it was kind of like an extremely difficult puzzle to try to figure out. I wasn't able to figure it out, but I enjoyed trying."
[ALSO LIKE]The 26-year-old Sandgren, who first turned pro in 2011, beat Jeremy Chardy, 2014 champion Stan Wawrinka, Maximilian Marterer and World No. 5 Dominic Thiem en route to the Australian Open quarter-finals.
“I'm happy with being resilient. It's not easy to come off some big wins, biggest wins of my career, crazy stages, like quarter-finals of a slam. That's crazy to me.”
The World No. 97 admitted he had planned to compete in a couple of ATP Challenger Tour events, starting this week and next week, but will now switch off and relax before his next scheduled trip to Quito for the Ecuador Open.
“It's all pretty new,” said Sandgren. “Where I'll be ranked [in the ATP Rankings] is interesting. I'm excited about that. Hopefully I can keep playing well.
“I'm going to go home and enjoy time with my family, turn off my phone, just really reflect on the last two weeks, reflect where my life has gone to, where I'm at, where I am in this stage at 26, who I am as a person, who I want to continue trying to be, where I want to go in the sport, where I want to go as a man.”
“The number going up in the bank account really doesn't matter to me that much. I try to work hard every day, and that's where I get my satisfaction from.
“The fact that I have resources to be able to pay for the things I'd like to – like a coach, [to] continue to be able to do that, maybe have a physio travel with me on the road more, help my Mum. She works real hard to support herself. I'd like to be able to help her some, too.”