Serena Williams Asked This Tennis Player To Apologize For His History Of Comments Supporting The ‘Alt-Right’

U.S. tennis player Tennys Sandgren should have been living out his professional dream at the Australian Open. Unranked going into the tournament, he knocked off ninth seed Stan Wawrinka in the second round, then advanced two more rounds, finding himself in the quarterfinals of the Grand Slam tourney.

However, his Cinderella story was overshadowed by reporters’ research on the upstart 26-year-old from Tennessee, whose social media history offered more than a little evidence that he supported or sympathized with some bizarre “alt-right” obsessions.

Dan Steinberg shared this mosaic of tweets from Sandgren as during his Australian Open progress.

Discussions of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, retweets from known white nationalists, and even (baseless) accusations that Hilary Clinton was involved in “spirit cooking” a satanic ritual of sorts — have all proven fair game on Sandgren’s Twitter account.

Sandgren’s unlikely tournament run came to an end on Tuesday as he was defeated by South Korea’s Hyeon Chung. When questioned by the sports media following his recent exit, he snapped and whined about the way his views were covered by the press.

Though Sandgren may have been done with the matter after that showing, tennis legend Serena Williams wasn’t done with him.

In her absence from the tournament following her recent childbirth, Williams took to Twitter with a simple message chastising not so much Sandgren’s social and political views, but his stubborn defense of them.

It’s far from certain that Sandgren will maintain notoriety through continued on-court success — but if he does, he’ll likely have to answer for his beliefs and behavior. If not, he might be one truly miserable tennis star.

As we’ve seen before, when Serena Williams wants an apology, she gets one.