French Open debutant Tennys Sandgren may have the best name in sport

In film and music, it’s commonplace for artists and actors to change their name to better position themselves for fame and fortune.

Would Paul Hewson, Shawn Carter and Gordon Thomas have enjoyed the same success as their pseudonyms Bono, Jay-Z and Sting respectively? That said, Arnold Dorsey’s decision to go with Engelbert Humperdinck was perhaps a risky one.

As sports becomes increasingly concerned with branding and economical viability, it would make sense that some athletes would change their name to increase their reach.

However, for one tennis player on the brink of success, his brand was burned in at birth.

Tennys Sandgren, an up-and-coming tennis player from Tennessee, will make his debut at the French Open on the back of a breakthrough year which has seen him climb to the brink of the world’s top 100.

He’s named after his Swedish Great Grandfather, with a Y, rather than an I, but the pronunciation is the same, and never goes unnoticed.

“We have to get past this if we want to have any sort of relationship here,” he jokes, recounting the many times he’s had to explain his name and chosen vocation to seemingly everyone he meets.

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What’s in a name?

This year, Tennys made his debut on the ATP Tour after a successful run on the sport’s secondary “Challenger Circuit” which has seen him rack up multiple titles and climb to a career high 112 in the world.

Despite the clear similarities, Tennys has never associated his name with his sport, which at first seems somewhat implausible.

Or maybe not. I share my name with one of the most common words in the English language and have never conflated the two. Save for one time when paint-balling, when someone shouted “fire at will!” – at which point the link became immediately and, painfully, apparent.

Either way, even if Tennys fails to see the link, potential future sponsors most certainly will not. “I am Tennys” – it sells itself.

Tennys would not be the first athlete with an ideal name. How perfect is it that the fastest man on earth, Usain Bolt, share his name with the delivery mechanism of lightning?

Perhaps while his competitors wasted hours working with teams of choreographers to come up with memorable celebrations, Usain Bolt – whose trademark ‘Lightning Bolt’ pose was all-but-obvious from day one – was able to devote all his time to just getting faster.

While Tennys may have the perfect name for the sport, his look is decidedly un-tennis-like. With his handlebar mustache and long shaggy hair, he looks more like a professional wrestler than your archetypal tennis player.

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The look began as a short-term homage to his favorite band, Metallica, but after a number of wins, the look was deemed good luck and it had to stay.

“I don’t think my mum is too happy with the look, but as long as I keep winning, I think she’ll be ok,” he says.