Christopher Eubanks' New Reality

The crowds surrounding Court 13 on Monday at the Australian Open spoke volumes. Christopher Eubanks’ 6-4, 6-2, 6-3 victory over Auckland finalist Taro Daniel was ordinary. But the number of fans there spoke to a new reality for Eubanks, one of the breakout stars of the 2023 season.

“There were a lot of people out there to watch Taro Daniel play tennis too after the week he had in Auckland. He certainly brought out a lot of fans,” Eubanks told ATPTour.com. “But yeah, it's pretty cool to kind of be at a stage now where people make the effort to kind of know when you play and want to come to your matches to watch and support. Yeah, it's a really, really cool kind of change.”

This time last year Eubanks, then 26, had yet to crack the Top 100 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. He won a match in the main draw at the season’s first major against Soonwoo Kwon, but had yet to elevate himself to stardom. A win at a Slam was a big deal.

But through the rest of 2023, Eubanks’ life changed. First came his Top 100 breakthrough in Miami, where the American struggled to hold back tears in a media mixed zone after clinching the accomplishment against Gregoire Barrere. That week he made his first ATP Masters 1000 quarter-final, but the best was yet to come.

During the grass-court season, Eubanks proved he could not only compete on the ATP Tour, but beat some of the very best players in the world. The former Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket won his first ATP Tour title in Mallorca and parlayed his momentum into a dream quarter-final run at Wimbledon, where he upset Stefanos Tsitsipas and nearly took out Daniil Medvedev.

Last July, Eubanks reached a career-high Pepperstone ATP Ranking of No. 29 and remains close to that mark at No. 35. There has not been a moment in particular when this whirlwind of success has hit the Atlanta-native.

“It's just kind of been a culmination of a lot of the past six months of just seeing the reception that I've been able to get at various tournaments from fans and just understanding that, hey, wherever my ranking is, I have worked to get there. It isn't a fluke,” Eubanks said. “I think the main thing is just kind of believing in the hard work that I've done and just knowing that, 'Hey, I belong at this level.' And that's something I don't really believe that I fully believed in myself for a lot of years I would say on Tour." 

Eubanks has earned more than $2.6 million in career prize money and claimed more than half of it last year alone. It is not an exaggeration to say that the trajectory of his life changed.

“It's extremely gratifying, especially when you have kind of dealt with various bouts of questioning whether or not you truly belong,” Eubanks said. “And to be in this position now, I think it's really, really, really cool. It's extremely fulfilling I would say. It's just the best way to describe it.

“It's something that three years ago, four years ago, I don't know if I fully ever believed would happen. It's a new reality now.”

^{Photo: Corinne Dubreuil/ATP Tour}
Eubanks most recently experiences significant doubt when he lost in the first round of an ATP Challenger Tour event in Chicago in August 2022. After falling to Ryan Harrison in straight sets, Eubanks had a conversation with USTA coach Dean Goldfine.

“I said, ‘Dean, I'm tired of being at Challengers. Like I'm really, really, really fed up and this is getting extremely frustrating’,” Eubanks recalled. “We had a good talk about it. And that next US Open I qualied in and won my first Grand Slam match. So that's when things I would always attribute it back to US Open 2022, when things really clicked and started to change.”

The year before, Eubanks had his agent reach out to networks about potential commentary opportunities with an eye towards the future. But after that conversation with Goldfine and effort at the US Open, the big-serving right-hander played well on the ATP Challenger Tour at the end of the season and never looked back, catapulting to new heights in 2023.

So while a year ago an opening win at the Australian Open would have been a major moment, a lot has changed in 12 months.

“There was a time in which getting that first-round win would require a big celebration for me just kind of being like, 'Wow, look what just happened.' But now I think I've gotten settled in to how things have been and I'm just honestly enjoying it,” Eubanks said. “I feel like after I was able to kind of get a few Grand Slam wins under the belt, it just makes it feel a little bit more normal, which I can settle into this somewhat new reality for me and just saying like, 'Hey, I'm a player that can consistently win rounds in Slams’, and it's no longer just about trying to get in.

“I had a lot of friends ask me, they would say ‘Oh man, you're close to being seeded. Are you upset that you didn't get seeded?’ I'm like, 'Man, I spent most of my career trying to get into the main draw. I didn't care about seeding at all.' So to now be in a position where I'm consistently, hopefully really establishing myself as a player who can win rounds in majors consistently, I think that is pretty cool.”

But do not mistake Eubanks’ words for contentment. Very little changed this offseason for the 27-year-old. He trained with players at Georgia Tech like usual and then spent 10 days in Florida with Coco Gauff and her family and also practised with Frances Tiafoe. He is as focussed as ever on continuing his climb, starting with his second-round match in Melbourne against fifth seed Andrey Rublev.

“It's kind of like alright, what's the job now? What am I doing? How can I be better and continue to grow and not bask in where I am now and just continue to look for the next thing and the next thing and the next thing,” Eubanks said. “Last year was Mallorca and Wimbledon, [I saw] what I'm capable of. It just kind of opens my eyes to say that I want to work even harder just to see. I don't know where it's going to end up. I'd love for it to end up somewhere really, really good. I don't know where it's going to go. But I want to do everything I can to find out.”