Sandgren denies coach Russell's push-up challenge

With players staying home during the COVID-19 quarantine, many coaches and players have turned to social media challenges to keep themselves in shape. One of these challengers is Michael Russell, the coach of Tennys Sandgren. He showed off his absurd strength on Instagram.

Doing one-handed pushups while hitting a ping pong ball (because why not?), Russell challenged a number of players including his pupil Sandgren. On Tennis Channel Live, the world No. 55 quickly shut down the challenge.

"He's probably in better shape than 80 percent of the tour players right now," Sandgren said. "Honestly, I don't know what he was doing posting this. First of all, I think he's lost his mind...Secondly, I'm not doing that, OK? That's an embarrassingly strong feat of strength to do this and hit ping-pong balls.

“While I’m impressed with my coach here, no, I decline, thank you.”

Sandgren picked up some of the spotlight at this year's Australian Open when he reached the quarterfinals and failed to convert seven match points against Roger Federer in a five-set stunner.

"[Has] the emotion gone away?" Sandgren said. "That sounds cool. Can we get to that part? It was a great experience, it was a great match, it didn't work out, but I did a lot of great things. I think I'd win that match in that situation nine out of 10 times."

The 28-year-old was set to play in the UTR Pro Match Series over the weekend, but withdrew due to a knee injury.

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