Australian Open 2018: Serena Williams takes dig at Tennys Sandgren after controversial tweets

What's the story?

Serena Williams has retorted back at fellow American tennis player Tennys Sandgren after his tweet got him into a controversy over an alleged racial comment, that had caught the attention of the tennis world, earlier.

In case you didn't know...

Tennys Sandgren is a 26-year old American tennis player who achieved fame when he reached the quarterfinals of the ongoing Australian Open for the first time in his career.

The heart of the matter

Tennys Sandgren was recently caught in controversy as a large number of tweets from his profile resurfaced that shed light on his political inclination. He appeared to be retweeting and following a lot of far-right leaning personalities which included English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson.

A screenshot had surfaced online which showed that Sandgren had tweeted a link to an article that was about Serena Williams abusing Italian tennis player Roberta Vinci and Sandgren had captioned it as 'Disgusting'.

Serena responded to this on Twitter when Sandgren took on Hyeon Chung in the Australian Open quarterfinals, which he lost 4-6, 6-7, 3-6. On his way to the quarterfinals, Sandgren had beaten Stan Wawrinka and Dominic Thiem.

@TennysSandgren I don't need or want one. But there is a entire group of people that deserves an apology. I cant look at my daughter and tell her I sat back and was quiet. No! she will know how to stand up for herself and others- through my example. ✊🏿 pic.twitter.com/im2NhoMdN4

— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) January 24, 2018

Turns channel

— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) January 24, 2018

He has been quite vocal in his opposition to the criticism from the tennis community and the media and has expressed his displeasure at the press conferences in Melbourne. He has deleted the tweets from his profile and has said that he cannot stop people from taking screenshots or distributing the tweets on social media and wants to start afresh.

What's next?

Serena Williams' response was appreciated by all in the tennis community as she continues her recovery to full fitness ahead of the tennis season.

Author's take

Sandgren is entitled to his political inclination, however, being famous at such a big level brings with it certain restrictions and he has to keep that in mind. He deleted his tweets, which shows he wants to put this behind him and move ahead in his life from this episode.