Frances Tiafoe and Christopher Eubanks revisited their infamous ice-cold handshake at the 2021 US Open, which left many tennis fans presuming that the two were not on good terms.
Tiafoe defeated Eubanks in four tight sets under the lights in a first-round match in front of a jam-packed Court 17. But it was their post-match handshake that overshadowed an otherwise high-quality match that saw Eubanks, ranked outside the Top 200 on the ATP Tour at the time, push Tiafoe to his limits.
An ecstatic Tiafoe was happy to get through that match and actually praised Eubanks for a gallant effort calling him 'a Top-100 guy'. As prophetic as it sounded, Eubanks was visibly broken and appeared uninterested in a postmatch pep talk when they shook hands.
But both players have since cleared the air in their Washington press conference on that bizarre confrontation. Eubanks admits his it was purely out of frustration for undoing his good work shortly after breaking back late in the fourth set.
"What I remember about that match, I'm glad you asked about it, was we had a little bit of I would say an icy handshake afterwards which I didn't view it as icy in the moment and neither did he, but after the match my phone was blowing up saying, Is everything okay? You guys didn't shake hands.
"I even talked to Frances about it. I said, Man, I was down a break in the fourth. I broke back and started feeling confident and he broke me right back and served out the match."
Eubanks went as far as recalling practicing with Tiafoe side by side the very next day, and the pair even joked about the incident. When the question was put up to Tiafoe, he was equally in agreement that there was no bad blood between them.
"Well, at the time, I remember him playing lights out and I was getting super pissed off. And then also when I was getting the crowd riled up and he was mocking me, I was getting super pissed off, but I don't know if he told you about the handshake at the end."
"As soon he shakes my hand, he's giving me these ones. I'm like, Hey, man, I'm trying to give him some good stuff like, You're playing great. He trying to hear none of it. He's already walking to the chair."
Tiafoe leads their head-to-head 2-0, winning their most recent clash at the 2022 Citi Open in straight sets. The world number 10, however, is keen to avoid seeing eye to eye with Eubanks on the court anytime soon given his remarkable spell of good form.
"I told him he was a top-100 guy. He lied about the four times. That's why I repeated it a couple times because he was walking away (smiling). But, yeah, so when we played here in D.C. last year, he made sure to give me a good handshake. Yeah, hopefully I don't play him anytime soon."
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