A month ago, Chris Eubanks began the grass-court portion of the season that leads into Wimbledon at a lower-level ATP Challenger Tour event in Surbiton, England.
The 27-year-old American walked away with about $2,500 in prize money after losing in straight sets in the second round to a player ranked outside the Top 100, which only served to reinforce a distaste for the green surface.
Searching for answers, Eubanks reached out to International Tennis Hall of Famer Kim Clijsters, a four-time Grand Slam champion he befriended while playing World TeamTennis.
“I was just kind of frustrated,” he recounted. “I sent her a text, and I was like, ‘Grass is the stupidest surface to play tennis on. Why are we playing tennis — a sport in which we need the ball to bounce — on a very inconsistent surface?’ And you can’t move on it.”
Well, just look at Eubanks now: He eliminated No. 12 seed Cam Norrie of Britain 6-3, 3-6, 6-2, 7-6 (3) in the second round, then swept Australian Chris O’Connell 7-6 (5), 7-6 (3), 7-6 (2) to reach the last 16 at the All England Club. He had won two main draw matches in his Grand Slam career before this week.
“A lot of the hard work and the frustration that I felt throughout my career is all worth it for moments like this,” Eubanks, who has dabbled in work as a TV commentator, said on ESPN. “Wimbledon second week is the reason we play tennis.”
After Clijsters offered some advice about drills to help with footwork on grass — as it happens, Eubanks said, the same sort of things his coach suggested — so much seemed to change.
Eubanks, who is 6 feet, 7 inches, went out and won a grass tournament in Mallorca, Spain, last week to collect his first ATP Tour title and rise to a career-best ranking of No. 43.
He carried that momentum into his first Wimbledon main draw, where the two-time NCAA All-American at Georgia Tech faces No. 5 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas on Monday for a spot in the quarterfinals.
“He played unbelievable,” Norrie said. “What he was going for was so aggressive and so risky, and it paid off for him. Credit to him.”
And maybe — just maybe — Eubanks feels a little bit better about playing on the green stuff than he did in early June.
“That’s a very different person now, I can tell you that much,” Eubanks said. “I’m loving the grass right now.”
Also Saturday, top seed Carlos Alcaraz beat No. 25 Nicolas Jarry 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3, 7-5 to reach a fourth-round matchup with 2021 Wimbledon runner-up Matteo Berrettini.
“[Alcaraz is] showing who he is,” said Berrettini, who missed Wimbledon a year ago because he tested positive for COVID-19 and beat Alexander Zverev in straight sets Saturday. “The first time I played him two years ago, I felt this kid is special.”
No. 10 Frances Tiafoe, a 25-year-old American, was among the players whose third-round contests were affected by yet more rain Saturday: His match was early in the third set after he dropped the first two against three-time major semifinalist Grigor Dimitrov when they were sent home for the evening.
The winner of that one will go up against No. 6 Holger Rune, the 20-year-old from Denmark who saved two match points — and benefited from his foe’s questionable decision to try an underarm serve at 8-all in the final tiebreaker — along the way to edging No. 31 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 6-3, 4-6, 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (10-8). Rune was twice a point from losing at 5-4 in the fifth set; then he trailed 8-5 in the first-to-10 concluding tiebreaker before racing to the finish, helped in part by taking advantage of that short serve that he punished with a winning return.
“Yeah,” Rune said about the underarm offering, “I wouldn’t have done it.”
A big matchup in the women’s fourth round will be 2022 runner-up Ons Jabeur against 2011 and 2014 champion Petra Kvitova. Also moving on were defending champion Elena Rybakina, No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka, No. 13 Beatriz Haddad Maia, No. 21 Ekaterina Alexandrova and No. 25 Madison Keys.