With 'dark clouds' gone, Eubanks eyes late-season surge

After losing in the first round of Wimbledon, Christopher Eubanks’s PIF ATP Ranking fell from No. 62 to No. 128 on Monday. But just two days later, the American had a big smile on his face at the Infosys Hall of Fame Open after reaching the quarter-finals of the grass-court event with a win against #NextGenATP American Ethan Quinn.

“It's been a while. For sure it's been a while since I had that feeling of putting together a good quality win and definitely it's been even longer since being in a quarter-final,” Eubanks told ATPTour.com. “So it feels good to finally be able to kind of piece together a match that maybe I didn't play my best for the entirety of the match. But I was able to put it together and just continue to compete.

“If you haven't been winning, it feels as though a lot of things constantly go against you. Today kind of felt good to be able to kind of come up with the goods when I needed it. And to end the match with the win was pretty big.”

A year ago, Eubanks was enjoying the biggest high of his career. After a tremendous start to 2023 in which he made his first ATP Masters 1000 quarter-final in Miami, claimed his maiden ATP Tour title in Mallorca and reached his first major quarter-final at Wimbledon, he proved he could compete with the very best players in the world.

At the start of 2023, Eubanks had never cracked the world’s Top 100. By the end of July he reached a career-high World No. 29 and was receiving massive international attention.

But after reaching last year’s Atlanta quarter-finals, Eubanks did not win consecutive matches again until Halle last month.

“It's pretty difficult, that's for sure. It's definitely not easy to try to look at the positive side when things aren't going your way,” Eubanks said. “But I think [it is about] understanding that this is just part of the Tour, it's not something that's super specific to me. There are tonnes of players who maybe, throughout the course of their career, have different ebbs and flows, of winning and losing.”

Watch Highlights: Eubanks' R2 Newport Win

In the moment, it was easy for Eubanks to think he was the only one this was happening to. But many players have ups and downs.

“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. When you're winning a lot, you don't think much about it. When you're not winning a lot, it certainly feels like the weight of the world can be on your shoulders,” Eubanks said. “But I think putting things in perspective this past week, and just understanding, ‘Hey, this happens to everybody on Tour at some point’. It's just continuing to control what I can control, which is just the effort I put on the practice court, the effort I put in the matches.

“Continuing to fight and just fighting in matches is probably the hardest thing to do when you're not playing well, you're not winning. But that's the only thing I can control. If I continue to fight, I continue to put myself in those situations, hopefully, eventually, the hard work will pay off and good things will happen.”

In Halle, Eubanks had “a really cool” conversation with Nuno Borges, who last year won the Phoenix ATP Challenger Tour event before enduring an extended patch of tough results. The Portuguese player felt like he was a much better player than he was when he triumphed in Arizona, but the wins were not coming.

Borges kept working hard, made the fourth round of this year’s Australian Open and successfully defended his Phoenix crown.

“When I heard that from him, it made me feel a lot better, because I feel the same way,” Eubanks said. “I feel like I'm a better player than I was a year ago, but I'm just not putting together wins.”

For much of Eubanks’ career, if things were not going great, he was able to drop down to the ATP Challenger Tour to try to string together wins and regain his confidence. It was tougher to do that as a Top 30 player in the world. Just three weeks ago, he was World No. 42.

But in a way, losing in straight sets in the first round of Wimbledon to Quentin Halys was a burden removed from Eubanks’ shoulders. There are no more thoughts about a huge chunk of points to defend in the future.

“I will say after Wimbledon, it did feel like, ‘Oh, wow, I don't have to worry about those two weeks hanging over my head’. Because after Wimbledon last year, you play the US Open and I put together I think one win in Shanghai but didn't win that many matches after that. You don't really think that much about it,” Eubanks said. “But then the beginning of this year started, I got a good win in Australia and then not many wins after that. You realise, ‘Oh no, clay-court season is coming’, and then it's like that dark cloud of what comes after the clay-court season is obviously the grass, which was big for me.

“It definitely feels like a bit of a weight is off my shoulders, I can just kind of focus on playing tennis now and to find the form that kind of got me that success that I found last year.”

Last month the 28-year-old served for a place in the Halle semi-finals against Zhang Zhizhen. On one hand, that was a big opportunity to earn plenty of points at an ATP 500 event. But despite the disappointment, it was a positive sign that Eubanks put himself in that position against the top player.

Eubanks already has an opportunity to make a move this week in Newport, where he is trying to claim his first title of the season.

“There's a lot of ground to make up, which is the exciting part for me. Now having whatever feels like a dark cloud off, that weight off my shoulders, now I can just find my form and just play my way,” Eubanks said. “At least I have an opportunity to play my way into good form. I think that the future's looking bright if I had to kind of put it into words.

“I'm really excited about what these next few months, the remaining part of the year holds for me. I truly believe that I can find some of that form I found last year to kind of get myself back to where I know I can be. At the end of the day I've just got to continue to put in the work and just trust it's going to happen.”