Teny Sandgren has reacted to his last gap loss to Roger Federer at the Australian Open quarter finals in Melbourne on Tuesday.
Odunews.com reprts that the American came agonisingly close to winning his quarter-final match but couldn’t convert any of his seven match points in the fourth set, then losing to Federer in five.
Sandgren told reporters he felt “emotionally and physically tired” after the match, but for now isn’t taking any positives from being so close to winning.
“Not encouraged right now. I have zero encouragement right now,” he said.
“I mean, I’m sure I’ll look back in a couple days and appreciate the tennis I played the last, what, eight, nine days. But currently just disappointed. Just disappointed.”
The world number 100 admitted just an hour after the match he had already run through the seven match points in his head “a bunch of times”.
“He was aggressive on one, passive on a few, came in on one, could have put the volley in a different spot,” he said.
“He read it well, hit two good passes. Put me in an awkward spot on the last one I had. Missed the approach. He probably would have passed me anyway. It was in a bad spot.
“(I should have) maybe (gone) for a backhand crosscourt full power. Probably had eight or nine that I played pretty good, but maybe I could have opened it up a little bit more.
“I was hitting my backhand well the whole day. Maybe I could have done more with that.
“In hindsight, played the volley to the open court. But I also didn’t want to see a classic Roger Federer running forehand passing shot. So I thought I would play it strong cross, and he hit a great pass, yeah.”
Sandgren didn’t want to blame “distractions” for the loss, which included a fan audibly commentating the match late in the game – “that’s not ideal”, he said – and a ball girl running into his leg during the fourth set tiebreak.
“That’s not a distraction. That was physically painful. She was apologetic and everything. Accidents happen, so that wasn’t a big deal,” he said.
“It stung a little bit at the time. It didn’t bother me when the point started, no.”
He then added, likely in reference to the 2018 Australian Open when he was found to have supported extreme right-wing political accounts on social media, “I mean, I’ve had to deal with plenty of things going on in my career.
“This wasn’t anything more or less than what I was accustomed to. I don’t think there was anything that was taking away from my level of play.”
