Welcome to the top 100, Christopher Eubanks!
It won’t be official until the new ATP rankings come out next Monday, but Eubanks guaranteed a debut spot in the top 100 when he beat Gregoire Barrere 6-3, 7-6(7) in the third round of the Miami Open on Monday night. Eubanks came back from 6-2 down in the second-set tiebreaker to triumph after one hour and 28 minutes for his milestone victory.
The big-serving American was emotional on the court afterward and was in tears during his post-match press conference.
“Really good,” he started after being asked about how top-100 status feels, fighting the emotions. “Really good…. Really good.”
Since turning pro in 2017, Eubanks has mostly toiled away at the Challenger level. Prior to arriving in Miami, the Atlanta native was 11-28 lifetime at the ATP level. Although he is playing the best tennis of his life right now, even this year hasn’t been easy for him. He recently lost to 41-year-old Feliciano Lopez in Acapulco, where Lopez was playing the last tournament of his career and had not won a main-tour match since 2021.
“The past few weeks have been really, really tough just because I’ve been kind of thinking about top 100 and everything,” Eubanks admitted. “I had some losses that I shouldn’t have [had] and I was really second-guessing a lot about my game and everything.”
There is no second-guessing now. Eubanks is back on the rise–to an extent he had never risen before. He currently registers at 119th in the world and his career-high ranking is No. 102, but he is projected to reach No. 97 even if he loses to Adrian Mannarino on Tuesday.
Top 100, here we come.
“It’s a benchmark,” Eubanks noted. “Every professional tennis player, it’s a big deal for them. It solidifies like, ‘hey, you’re a real pro.’ You’re an established pro.’ Out of everybody in the world that plays tennis at some point, in some week in the world, you were one of the best 100 tennis players in the world. IN THE WORLD. Like, there’s a lot of people that play tennis. A LOT of people. And it’s like, I’m sitting here as one of the top 100 best people to do it – one of the best players to do it right now. It feels good.”
It might have felt like it would never happen, either. Eubanks wasn’t one of the best juniors, wasn’t one of the best college players during his time at Georgia Tech, and wasn’t one of the best pros–at least not best 100–in his first six years on tour.
Now he is.
“I just think back…it’s just weird; it’s like everything’s coming together,” the 26-year-old explained. “Genuinely, I never really felt like…. Growing up I was never the best junior. I was never the best in my state really, or the best in my section; never was best in the nation, a lot of that stuff. But I just practiced and just worked and was just like, ‘whatever happens happens.’ I got a college scholarship; it was great. I said I wanted to play pro; didn’t know if I really meant it…. I knew I had the game to compete with top 100 guys. I didn’t know if I had the consistency to actually win enough matches to get there.
“Now I’m there. It’s crazy. It’s just wild.”
nice one, Chris
Love him. And now, the 1/4s