LONDON (Reuters) – Chris Eubanks has emerged as the unlikely American man to go the distance at Wimbledon, downing Australian Chris O’Connell in straight sets on Saturday to reach the fourth round and keep his meteoric climb up the rankings on track.
His sharp commentary on the Tennis Channel has earned rave reviews but it is his performance on his least favourite surface this week that has been the talk of the grass court major.
While his higher-ranked compatriots Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul suffered early exits, Eubanks, 43rd in the world going into Wimbledon, is expected to reach the top 40 now with his best-ever major performance after cracking the top 100 only four months ago.
“Your career really changes going from 110 to 85. You can argue that it does change as well going from 85 to 50. But when you spent four or five years hovering between 150 and 200 and 220, that jump from 110 to 85 meant so, so, so much to me,” he told reporters.
“Everything is just sweet now. Everything just continues. It’s like the icing on the cake.”
Eubanks survived the unenviable task of facing Cameron Norrie in front of a loyal home crowd on Friday, beating the British number one in an inspired performance.
A day later, he unleashed a hailstorm of 23 aces and 65 winners to conquer O’Connell and set up a meeting with Greek fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, who claimed a 6-4 7-6(5) 6-4 win over Serbia’s Laslo Djere.
World number three Daniil Medvedev, who beat Eubanks in Miami this week, described the American’s game as “total tennis”.
“He is not scared of anything. He just goes for it. Hits very, very fast. Goes to the net as soon as he has the opportunity,” said Medvedev. “He managed to find something this year which I don’t think he had before.”
Eubanks has said he is taking the tournament one match at a time, ignoring “the magnitude of what’s going on”.
Even so, playing on Court 18 where his compatriot John Isner outlasted Nicolas Mahut in their 2010 epic — recorded as the longest-ever tennis match — helped to put the sheer scale of his achievement into focus.
“A hot moment kind of came in the warm-up when I looked up at the stands of Court 18 and realised, I’m like, Oh, this is the Isner-Mahut court. I watched tennis on this court for three days one time a few years ago. That was kind of cool. And to see the stands pretty packed,” he told reporters.
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York; editing by Clare Fallon)
