All About Christopher Eubanks, Your New Favorite Tennis Pro
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Wimbledon breakout star Christopher Eubanks needs no introduction at this point, but we'll give you one anyway because it's truly *that* remarkable. Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Christopher began playing tennis with his dad at age 2 while people like me were banging on random surfaces and throwing temper tantrums.
Fast-forward a few decades, and after making his ATP Tour debut in 2015 and playing three seasons at Georgia Tech, Christopher turned pro in 2017. Following a series of unfortunate upsets during his early professional career, he then came in hot in Miami during the ATP Masters 1000 in March 2023 and has continued to absolutely crush it. Like, he went from ranking in the mid-200s to being 29th in the world!
Here's what you should know about your new fav tennis pro Christopher, including how he first began playing and the iconic friendships he's forged with fellow stars Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka.
Christopher is from Atlanta, Georgia
Christopher was born on May 5, 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia—a place that informed the athlete's early life both personally and professionally. Case in point? Growing up in Atlanta, the tennis star was able to connect with many talented players who helped guide his career.
During an interview with Wimbledon, he explained, “I was extremely, extremely fortunate to grow up in Atlanta, Georgia, at the time that I did. There were so many players from the city, not too far from my house, that went through the trials and tribulations before me and really helped me out.”
“Whether it's Jarmere Jenkins, who's Serena [Williams'] long-time hitting partner, and got up to 180 himself. His older brother Jermaine Jenkins is now a national coach at USTA. Donald Young has been like a big brother to me since I was like 15. All of those guys grew up or were about 10 minutes away from where I lived. I was so, so lucky to have those guys at my disposal from a young age,” he continued.
'Kay, I love this community he had back at home during such a pivotal time. 🥺❤️
Religion is an important part of his life
The tennis star's father, Mark Eubanks, is even a Baptist minister, while his maternal grandfather started a Baptist church in Memphis.
During a convo with Mail Sport (via the Daily Mail), Christopher mused, “My grandfather, my mom's father, started what's now a fairly prominent Baptist church in Memphis.” He then hilariously added, “The funny thing about being a preacher's kid is when you're playing tournaments on Saturdays and Sundays, you miss a lot of Sunday services!”
Instead of faith and tennis existing in two separate spheres for Christopher, with time these two entities have actually coalesced in a really incredible way. During that same interview, Christopher said, “I think it's more so just about instilling faith at a young age is pretty important, especially to my parents, and I think faith can mean different things to different people. For me, one of the main things of having faith is just simply taking it into every walk of life, which could be also my tennis. It's just trusting that if I keep doing what I'm supposed to do, it's going to work out.”
Tennis is all in the family for him
Christopher's older bro Mark (who is 13 years his senior) began playing tennis first—a hobby that inspired the tennis pro as he grew up watching his sibling. Cute bb pic incoming just because:
“I would take [Christopher] out to the court in the stroller, he would sit and watch us,” the tennis player's father dished to ATP in July 2023. “My older son, he had a decent game. He got a college scholarship, but he never had the passion that Chris had, for whatever reason. But it worked out...It was around age 2, I think, that I put a racquet in his hand and I noticed he had good eye-hand coordination and then we just built from there.”
Christopher played tennis at Georgia Tech
During his time at the college, Christopher played a remarkable three seasons and even earned the title of two-time All-American and two-time Player of the Year by the American Athletic Conference.
And because he was just so freakin' good, he advanced to his professional career in 2017 instead of finishing up his senior year at school (not not jealous).
Christopher has said he's felt fortunate every step of the way: “My life goal wasn't really to play pro tennis or nothing else. I always said that I wanted to be a professional tennis player, but I don't really think I fully believed it until my junior year,” he said during that same Mail Sport convo. “It was like, let’s get a degree in the business school, and maybe I play pro tennis, maybe I coach, we'll see what happens. Things just kind of started to gain some momentum around my junior year, and I decided to fully pursue tennis.”
He almost quit playing tennis after COVID-19 lockdowns
And thank goodness he didn't! During his 2023 Wimbledon interview, the tennis pro said the COVID-19 pandemic served as a roadblock. At the time, Christopher was ranked in the mid-200s and was beginning to lose hope—so much so that he wound up telling his agent he needed to break into the Top 100 or find another job. In April 2022, he showed just how serious he was after he tried his hand at being a TV analyst for the Tennis Channel.
But all of that changed in Miami in March 2023....
His professional career took a remarkable turn for the better this year
Christopher broke the Top 100 for the first time in 2023 after he won his first two matches during the ATP Masters 1000 in Miami, bringing his ranking up to number 85. The tennis pro then began to suffer some losses until fellow player Kim Clijsters offered suggestions for how he could improve his game.
“Try to do some little footwork drills. Even play some mini-tennis games...stay low, use your slice,” recalled Christopher during that same Wimbledon interview. After following Kim's advice, the athlete proceeded to win the title at the Mallorca Open on July 1. “She's a big, big contributing factor to, I think, some of the success. Just keeping my mind fresh and keeping me up in spirits when I wasn’t,” Christopher gushed of Kim.
Following the impressive win, the Georgia native qualified for the coveted Wimbledon tournament in 2023. After successful games against Thiago Monteiro, Cameron Norrie, Christopher O'Connell, and Stefanos Tsitsipas, he lost to Daniil Medvedev during the quarter-final match-up. Nevertheless, he was proud of his Grand Slam debut.
“I’m more than okay with my effort today, how I gave it everything I had. It just didn't go my way,” he said at the time, adding, “That's tennis. There's only one winner at every single tournament. You have to kind of take the good with the bad, take the positive lessons, learn how you can move [forward with] them.”
“I think this week, these two or three weeks have been filled with positives. I didn't win today. I'm disappointed about it. It's unfortunate for me. But I think I showed a lot of positive signs that I can take moving forward, so I'm okay with that,” he concluded.
He's all about promoting diversity in the sport
During a Wimbledon press conference, the athlete opened up about his desire to champion and expand racial diversity in the world of tennis, and he emotionally acknowledged the “many trailblazers” that came before him.
“I think there’s no secret when you see the amount of diversity, especially on the women’s side coming up post-Venus and Serena. But I think on the men’s side, we’re coming up on a really, really good time: James Blake, Washington. You’ve got Frances [Tiafoe], [Michale] Mmoh, myself, Ben Shelton, Brian Shelton obviously played a huge part,” he mused.
Christopher also said, “Things are just kind of starting to trend in the right direction, especially for people of color. The more we can hopefully inspire little kids to say, 'Hey, maybe I should give tennis a try.'”
He counts Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka as friends
Yep, turns out Christopher has forged friendships with two other icons in the sport: Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff. During a convo with WTA Tennis at the 2023 Wimbledon tournament, the Georgia native said, “Being as close to Coco as I am...being good friends with Naomi, I'm around enough tennis players to be able to pick their brain, hear the way that they look at certain things. I think the biggest thing, it's a common theme amongst both of them, they've been saying for a long time that they feel like I belong at this level.”
“For a long time I questioned, again, whether or not I was consistent enough to play at this level really consistently...I don't know if I really believed I could put it together match after match after match against quality opponents. That's something Coco has been telling me for a long time. Naomi even says the same thing. That's kind of been the main thing of just reinforcing and instilling confidence. 'Hey, you can play at this level, you just got to believe it,'” he added.
@ Christopher: Friendly reminder that if you've got Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka telling you to keep at it... you'd better keep at it!
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