Tennys Sandgren has had a sudden rise to fame via this week’s Australian Open, under increased media attention he’s apologised for his past homophobic comments.

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Sandgren had an unexpectedly good performance at the Australian Open this week, ranked number 96th in the world the American player made it all the way to the quarter finals before being knocked out by South Korean player Hyeon Chung.

The layers sudden success brought a spotlight to his political beliefs and accusations that he was a supporter of the alt-right movement.

The spotlight was shone a light on a twitter post he’d made in 2012 which described his visit to a gay night club as ‘making his eyes bleed’.

As he fronted the media at the Australian Open yesterday following his knock out, the player read a prepared statement from his phone.

Sandgren said he had been demonised by the media, and who he follows on the social media platform were not a good indication of who he was as a person.

“You seek to put people in these little boxes so that you can order the world in your already assumed preconceived ideas. You strip away any individuality for the sake of demonizing by way of the collective.” Sangren said in his address to the media, saying their reporting had been sensationalist.

“You would rather perpetuate propaganda machines instead of researching information from a host of angles and perspectives while being willing to learn, change, and grow. You dehumanize with pen and paper and turn neighbour against neighbour.

“It is my firm belief that the highest value must be placed on the virtue of each individual, regardless of gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation. It’s my job to continue on this journey with the goal of becoming the best me I can and to embody the love Christ has for me, for I answer to him and him alone.” Sandgren said.

The player deleted all the previous posts on his Twitter account, leaving just an apology to LGBTI+ people.

“In regards to the gay club tweet from 2012, I used poor and harsh words to describe a bad experience, and is not indicative of how I feel about the people in that community. To everyone I offended with that, pls accept my apology,” Sandgren wrote on Thursday.

Sandgren told journalists he was heading home to Tennessee and taking some time to think things.

“I’m going to go home and enjoy time with my family, turn off my phone, just really reflect on the last two weeks, reflect where my life has gone to, where I’m at, where I am in this stage at 26, who I am as a person, who I want to continue trying to be, where I want to go in the sport, where I want to go as a man,”

Image: Tennys Sandgren at the 2013 US Open by Khall1323 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0