TENNIS – KIA AUSTRALIAN OPEN
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SANDGREN ADVANCES TO THIRD ROUND: Tennys Sandgren, who won the 2016 Edwardsville Futures singles championship, advanced to the third round of the Kia Australian Open early Thursday morning local time (Thursday night Melbourne time).
Sandgren, from Gallatin, Tenn., defeated Stan Warinka of Switzerland 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 in their second-round match at Margaret Court Arena in Melbourne, Australia, to move into the third round of the year's first Grand Slam event; Sandgren defeated Jeremy Chardy of France 6-4, 7-6 (7-2), 6-2 in his first-round match of the Open.
Sandgren, currently ranked No. 86 in the world singles rankings, next takes on Germany's Maximillian Marterer in the third round. Sandgren leads 5-7, 6-3, 7-5 and it is tied 5-5 in the fourth set at 12:10 a.m. Saturday Central time.
The Sandgren-Marterer match was the second match of the day played at the National Tennis Centre's Show Court 2. Coverage on ESPN2 began at 8 tonight and will run until 6 a.m. Saturday. Matches are also being live-streamed on ESPN3 via the WatchESPN app for smartphones and on the Watch ESPN web site (www.watchespn.com); streaming is free, but you must have a subscription to Spectrum or to a participating telco provider to view ESPN3.
Edwardsville head tennis coach and Edwardsville Futures Tourney Director Dave Lipe said Wawrinka is a grand-slam champion and a player with an impressive resume.
"For Tennys to beat him anyplace is impressive, but to beat him in the second round of a major is more impressive," he said. "The icing on the cake is the fact that he did it in straight sets; the convincing lop-sidedness of the result is, frankly, a bit shocking, but, hopefully, this is an indicator of more many positive things on the near horizon. Tennys has worked hard for this; he fought his way up from the Futures level of the Pro Circuit after his career at Tennessee, and all of us who know him, in particular his many friends in Edwardsville and Godfrey (where he won events) are rooting for him!"
