Stefanos Tsitsipas was in full control of the match but then he lost control and ultimately the match against Christopher Eubanks at Wimbledon.
Christopher Eubanks was always a player that exuded talent but seemingly never quite figured things out. He was most known for doing rather well on the North American hard courts winning a couple of matches each year. At times he would make a main draw appearance but his tennis never quite impressed.
The American began this year ranked just outside of the Top 100 after some solid play on the ATP Challenger Tour last year. He started the year with some fair performances eventually making his top 100 debut after the Miami Open where he had a good run.
His ranking didn't really change that much during the clay season which isn't a very good surface for him but he made his Top 50 debut right ahead of Wimbledon after his maiden ATP trophy run in Mallorca. Somewhat of a weaker draw allowed him to book a final but his win over Mannarino wasn't by chance. He's proving it at Wimbledon as he's now in the quarter-final after the win over Tsitsipas.
Live ATP Rankings predict him to be somewhat around the 30th in the world as of now and that's an incredible turnaround for a player who started working as a part-time analyst in recent years in order to build a career away from tennis. At 27, Eubanks has plenty of time left in tennis, especially if he plays this way.
The match itself was excellent as it went the distance. Tsitsipas took the opening set mostly because Eubanks couldn't quite control the aggressive play. The American loves to attack and he mostly did but he went a bit overboard in that set posting 8 winners and 14 unforced errors. The second set was much better from him as he was more balanced. He had more winners and fewer errors winning the set in the tiebreak.
The next one swung the pendulum to Tsitsipas as it was almost a flawless set from the Greek. Eubanks again a bit too aggressive. That aggression paid off in the 4th set though Tsitsipas messed that one up. He caved a bit under the pressure, losing his serve at the worst possible time, at 4-4 in the 4th set.
The bad momentum continued for the Greek in the final set as he lost his serve early but broke a bit after that. He then lost his serve once more to give the American another chance to close it out. Some nerves were present there as he faced break points but ultimately the got it done.
The final score was 3-6 7-6(4) 3-6 6-4 6-4. Eubanks finished with 12 aces, 52 winners and 56 unforced errors.
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