Chris Eubanks’ Miami run is over, but it was one of the best American tennis stories of 2023 so far

Medvedev in Miami: Daniil ends Chris Eubanks' memorable run in quarterfinals

“I knew I had the game to play with guys in the Top 100,” Chris Eubanks said earlier this week in Miami, as he looked back on his journey through the pros to this point. “I just didn’t know if I had the consistency to win enough matches to get there.”

Eubanks’ confidence in his abilities, and his reservations about them, were both borne out in his 6-3, 7-5 loss to Daniil Medvedev on Thursday.

Eubanks had the game—the serve, the forehand, the volleys, the second-serve return—to stay with, and even push, a Top 5 opponent. He hit 37 winners, 10 more than Medvedev. He was 19 of 32 at the net. He earned six break points, and converted one. He won most of his first-serve points, and when he had a chance to set up for a forehand, he was just as lethal with it as his opponent.

But he wasn’t quite steady enough to win the match. Eubanks won just eight of 44 points on Medvedev’s first serve; the Russian hurt him with the T serve to his forehand side, and saved five break points with serves that Eubanks couldn’t get back in the court. The American also threw in his share of ill-timed errors from the baseline. Many of them came with his one-handed backhand, but the most crucial may have been a shanked forehand that he sent long to give Medvedev at break at 3-3 in the first set.

After the match, Medvedev echoed Eubanks’ emphasis on that boring but essential aspect of the sport: the ability to put the ball in the over and over and over, and to do it match after match after match.

“Everyone knows how to play; difference is consistency,” Medvedev said. “If Chris managed to play how he did this tournament, he’s going to go up, up, and up. You never know if it’s Top 10, Top 50, it’s a question of consistency.”

For now, Eubanks is happy, finally, to add his name to the long list of U.S. players in the Top 100. Starting in qualifying, the 26-year-old Atlantan won six straight matches in Miami; won four straight main-draw matches for the first time; and reached his first Masters 1000 quarterfinal.

“That’s when the emotion came out,” Eubanks said of the moment, after his third-round win, that he realized he had reached the Top 100. “It was about five years since I turned pro…Got to 150 in about a year. I thought it’s gonna come. Just didn’t happen that way. Then COVID happens, have to kind of sit down for a year. It’s a lot.

“Today feels a lot more like I’m here, trust it, I’m playing well. Let’s just see how long we can keep this thing going.”

However far Eubanks goes, his run in Miami has been one of the best stories in American tennis so far in 2023. He’s more proof that the U.S. system, whether it involves the college game, the USTA, a private academy, or all of the above, is turning prospects into pros.

Eubanks is a product of the academy that Donald Young’s parents set up outside Atlanta a decade and half ago. He’s a product of college tennis, having been a standout at Georgia Tech. He’s a product of the USTA’s development system, having trained with the organization’s coaches in Lake Nona, Fla.

Eubanks is also a product of the informal support group that the large U.S. contingent can provide on the road. During a rain delay in his last match, when he was in a second-set tiebreaker, Eubanks talked to Frances Tiafoe, who told him to go out and get the match done right now. Eubanks took his advice.

Eubanks, who had a pep talk from his friend Jamie Foxx on Thursday, said he was avoiding his Twitter mentions until the tournament was over. But it wasn’t easy.

“I’ve got to be honest,” he admitted, “I’m looking forward to checking it pretty soon.”

He’ll have a chance to look at it now. Have a chance to call himself a Top 100 player. And he’ll have a chance to, as he said, “see how long we can keep this thing going” in 2023.