A breakthrough season for American Christopher Eubanks hit a new high on Friday, when he upset 12th seed Cameron Norrie at Wimbledon to reach the third round of a major for the first time.
The American ousted last year’s semi-finalist Norrie 6-3, 3-6, 6-2, 7-6(3). Eubanks, who is making his Wimbledon debut, fired 62 winners and won 76 per cent of points behind his hefty first delivery to advance after two hours, 29 minutes. World No. 13 Norrie is the highest-ranked player Eubanks has defeated in his career.
“By far the biggest win of my career. Not even a question,” Eubanks said in his on-court interview. “There’s a tonne of really good tennis players who play professional tennis who never get the chance to play the number one Brit at Wimbledon in an atmosphere like this. It didn’t even matter how many people were for me or against me, this is something I will never forget the rest of my life.”
Despite falling a break down in the fourth set, Eubanks fought back and had a match point on Norrie’s serve at 4-5 before the Briton held and later forced a tie-break. The 27-year-old Eubanks held his nerve and raised his arms in the air after he closed the match on a backhand volley winner.
Eubanks played fearless, swashbuckling tennis, dictating the tenor of the match with his flat, booming first serve, clean-hit forehand and effortless power on his backhand, which netted a number of clean service return winners.
Eubanks was equally as comfortable generating his own power as redirecting the force of his Norrie’s shots. He didn’t get flustered during short periods when unforced errors accrued, believing in his game plan to the end.
At times Eubanks appeared to even surprise himself with his shotmaking. Early in the fourth set he crushed a near half-volley backhand from the baseline for a down-the-line, drop-the-mic winner. His facial expression was almost one of disbelief.
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Eubanks first cracked the Top 100 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings earlier this season following a quarter-final run at the ATP Masters 1000 event in Miami. The former Georgia Tech University standout has since built upon his momentum, collecting his maiden ATP Tour title last week at the Mallorca Championships and by doing so broke into the Top 50.
Eubanks stated that he was not too fond of grass courts a month ago, but a seven-match winning streak and a third-round appearance at the All England Club has him thinking otherwise.
“I had a rough go of it the first week of grass at [the] Surbiton [Challenger],” Eubanks said. “Just really didn’t like my movement, didn’t like my footing, felt like the ball was staying too low and it wasn’t as fast as people said it was.
“I lost in the second round of a Challenger and I just wanted to complain. So I just started complaining to a lot of the players saying, ‘Grass isn’t for me, I can’t wait to get back on a court where the ball bounces consistently!’ Just trying to vent a little bit and I think getting it out has allowed me to have a better view of the grass.”
Eubanks, who is up to World No. 40 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings, will next meet Christopher O’Connell, who ousted Jiri Vesely 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 in the second round.
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