Tennessean Tennis Pro Tennys Sandgren Is Out Here Doing Racquet Sports

Ava Wallace of the Washington Post has a fun story about Tennys Sandgren, ranked No. 102 in men’s tennis, who advanced in the Citi Open Wednesday afternoon after his opponent, 20th-ranked Nick Kyrgios, retired in the second set. Our man Tennys is a tennis pro, and his name is Tennys, which rhymes with “tennis.”

He is not unaware of this fact!

Sandgren avoided getting teased much growing up — “There aren’t any good jokes. What are they going to call me, Tennys ball?” — but his name did come with a certain amount of pressure for a tennis player.

“I feel like I had to play decent,” Sandgren said, “I had to be decent, I couldn’t be bad. I had to at least not be terrible, that was the goal.”

Tennys reportedly comes from a tennis-playing family—his parents and brother all play—but Tennys is apparently a family name, and his parents chose it for him because “they thought it was cool.” And it is cool. Tennys.

Tennys will take on eighth-ranked Alexander Zverev tonight on the Citi Open’s main stage. Got to root for Tennys.

UPDATE: In addition to having a good tennis name, Tennys is also a Pizzagater. Tennys has takes: