That’s the feel of the day in Church Road so far. the 43rd player in the world, Christopher Eubanks, 27, who had won only 9 matches on the ATP circuit before 2023, brought down Stefanos Tsitsipas in the round of 16 on Monday afternoon.
The American earns himself a quarter-final for his first appearance in the final draw of the London Grand Slam! He will try to continue his crazy epic against Daniil Medvedev on Wednesday.
“I feel like I’m living a dream, it’s crazy (…) It’s surreal, I can’t believe it,” admitted the 43rd player in the world after his feat. “The weird thing about tennis is that you never play your best tennis the whole game, but you play as best you can as much as you can and in the important moments I played well. I had ups and downs, but you pushed me so much to achieve incredible things, ”he added, addressing the conquered audience.
Recent winner on grass in Mallorca, his first title and his ticket to enter the world top 50, the American giant (2.01m) hunched over for three and a half sets before taking advantage of a slight drop in speed from the Greek on his serve.
Until 3-3 in the fourth set, Tsitsipas had been literally unplayable on his engagement, passing 65% of first serves and winning 88% of the points on his first serve and 72% on the second. He had not conceded any break point while getting ten on the opposing service, winning the first and third sets with a score of 6-3.
Unfortunately for him, Eubanks had won the second set tiebreak, his fifth of five in this tournament. And as soon as Tsitsipas dropped a little on his service, Eubanks, who played without complex and did not hesitate to claim the support of the public with a lot of gestures, rushed into the breach.
He broke at 4-4 in the fourth set on a double fault by Tsitsipas to win 6-4 and in the fifth he still raced ahead to finish with a cannon cross forehand that left Tsitsipas on the spot. In the next round awaits an even greater challenge in the person of the world number 3, the Russian Daniil Medvedev.