May 19, 2015
By Jon Cooper
The Good Word
Christopher Eubanks has seen a lot of tennis in his 19 years. Name a player and Eubanks has probably seen him in some tournament at some level.
“I’m a tennis junkie,” said Eubanks, an Atlanta native, who turned 19 two weeks ago. “I love going on YouTube, and if you go through my history you’re gonna see old matches, watching [Roger Federer], 2005, Monte Carlo or [Rafael] Nadal, 2006. Looking at old matches. That’s something I really like to do. The more time that I have with that, the more that I feel like I’m actually getting better even if I’m not on the court. So I love doing that type of stuff.”
Eubanks will add to his video history Wednesday afternoon at 3 p.m. ET, when he takes the court at the Hurd Tennis Center on the campus of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, for his first round match in NCAA Singles against Georgia’s senior Nathan Pasha.
Ranked No. 53, Eubanks won’t have to go too far into the video vault to find footage of Pasha, the nation’s 31st-ranked player and also an Atlanta native, as he’s already faced and beaten Pasha (7-5, 7-5) on January 18, in the MLK Invitational at the Ken Byers Tennis Complex.
Facing some of the best in the nation has become the norm for Eubanks, who had an exceptional freshman season, going 24-20 in singles, 14-12 in dual matches, and all of it while playing at No. 1 or 2. In addition to Pasha, he’s recorded wins over No. 5 Seb Stiefelmeyer of Louisville (6-1, 6-4), then-No. 11 Austin Smith (7-5, 5-7, 7-6 (7-4) of Georgia, and then-No. 37 Andreas Bjerrehus of Virginia Tech (6-3, 7-5) in the ACC Tournament. He’s also tested himself against such powerful players Oklahoma’s Axel Alvarez Llama, who enters the NCAAs as the Tournament’s top seed, No. 17 Winston Lin of Columbia, Virginia’s Mitchell Frank, No. 20, a four-time NCAA Singles participant and quarterfinalist in 2012, and ITA Freshman of the Year Noah Rubin, ranked No. 6.
Eubanks credits his matches against Llama, on Jan. 17, two days before defeating Pasha, and vs. Frank on April 10, as major steps forward.
He’d lost in straight sets to the OU junior, Llama, in his second collegiate match but offered much stiffer resistance the second time around.
“In the MLK Invitational, the first team we played was Oklahoma and I got a chance to see him again and took the first set from him,” Eubanks recalled. “It showed me I could compete with the guys that were at the top of college tennis and showed that if I can apply myself I can do some of the same things. It also showed me I still have a lot of work to do because he took it to me in the second and third sets. He really showed me what college tennis was going to be about for the next four years.”
Another lesson came at the end of the season at Charlottesville, when he played Frank in his Senior Day match. He battled before falling 6-2, 4-6, 6-7 (5-7).
“That was a long, long, long three-set match. It was a really, really cool atmosphere. It showed what big-time college tennis can be like,” he remembered. “That’s another match that kind of showed me, `This guy has had a heck of a college career. He’s done some things people have never done before and I was a couple of points away.’ To beat him would have been huge but it was huge in both respects. It made me even more hungry that I lost. I want to have that chance again, but it also showed me I can compete with some of these guys.”
Eubanks’ ability to compete was never in question to Jackets head coach Kenny Thorne.
“Right after the ACC Tournament, I went up and shook his hand and said, `Man, you were put in a very tough situation of playing No. 1 in this conference, taking some tough losses but getting some very good wins and being really competitive in just about every match,'” said Thorne. “He’s got resiliency and that’s key, especially in our conference. For him to come through and make the NCAAs his freshman year is a great accomplishment. That’s NOT easy to do. You not only have to have the good wins but you’ve got to be able to beat people that are gunning for you and that’s a tough thing for a young guy.”
A freshman playing at No. 1 is atypical and hadn’t been seen at Georgia Tech since the 2007-08 season when Guillermo Gomez did it. Gomez not only got to NCAAs that season but would become a three-time ITA All-American, a four-time All-ACC player, Conference Player of the Year in 2011, and Georgia Tech’s all-time leader in singles wins, with 119, passing Thorne (his 64 wins in dual matches is tied for the most in school history).
While making comparisons to Gomez might be premature, teammate Nathan Rakitt saw the potential in Eubanks last summer and, prior to the fall season, told anyone who would listen that the day would come that Eubanks will dominate men’s tennis.
Rakitt’s not backing off that assessment, of his Eubanks, who he calls “My big little brother.”
“He’s just totally risen to the challenge,” said Rakitt. “Just to see where he’s come from a few months ago — at the end of the summer everybody was all over him. `He’s got gain weight, he’s got to do this with his serve, he’s got to step up here, he’s got to keep up with his serve.’ In every aspect he’s totally risen to the challenge and exceeded expectations.
“This is just the beginning for him,” Rakitt added. “To get into the NCAA Tournament as a freshman, that’s something that not many people can say that they did. He’s just going to keep rising up.”
About the only area Eubanks hasn’t risen is putting some weight on his wiry 6-7, 165-pound frame.
“He’s got a lot of talent, a good head on his shoulders,” said Thorne. “We need to get some meat on his bones. He’ll get it because he’s working towards it. His metabolism is just off the charts.”
Of course, the first step in getting Eubanks to beef up is to get him to eat something other than tennis.
“We’ll go to dinner and we say, `Put away your phones.’ `Banks’ is over there watching live, Tennis Channel of somebody playing a match and I’m thinking, `That’s not so bad,'” said Thorne, with a laugh. “I got calls from him over Christmas. Christmas Day, `Hey, Coach, can you turn on the lights?’ to the Tennis Center. It’s Christmas Day and he’s down here.
“But that’s just the way he’s built,” he added. “You evaluate a match afterward, he corrects. He might make another mistake the next match and he’ll correct. You just felt like the whole season he was building.”
Building toward this week.
“To be able to go out and represent Georgia Tech in the individual competition is a really big honor. I can’t wait to get down there and be in the atmosphere,” Eubanks said. “I was talking to some of the old alumni like Marko Rajevac and Dusan [Miljevic] and they were saying just the experience of going there, especially as a freshman, it can do wonders for you. So just go out there, play free. I really can’t wait to get to Waco.”
