Game of aces helps Eubanks reach all-American Newport SFs
pWho doesnrsquo;t love a game of aces?/p
pAfter pitching a shutout at 3-all in the third set against Australian a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/aleksandar-vukic/v832/overview'Aleksandar Vukic/a, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/christopher-eubanks/e865/overview'Christopher Eubanks/a held on for a tight 6-2, 4-6, 7-6(3) win Friday at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/newport/315/overview'Infosys Hall of Fame Open/a to advance to his first tour-level semi-final since he won his maiden title on grass in Mallorca last year./p
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pldquo;You step to the line, the first one goes in, you have a good rhythm,rdquo; the American said in his on-court interview at the grass-court ATP 250 in Newport. ldquo;The second one goes in and the mind starts to wonder, lsquo;Oh, can I do it again?rsquo;/p
pldquo;You pump the third one and then all of a sudden the crowd starts to get behind you. I knew I was going for two first serves on that 40/0 point. Luckily I made the first one and I gave the crowd a little fist pump."/p
blockquote class="twitter-tweet"p lang="en" dir="ltr"4️⃣ in a row????????a href="https://twitter.com/chris_eubanks96?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@chris_eubanks96/a br⁰a href="https://twitter.com/TennisHalloFame?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@TennisHalloFame/a | a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/InfosysHallOfFameOpen?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#InfosysHallOfFameOpen/a a href="https://t.co/6AxZzySOBO"pic.twitter.com/6AxZzySOBO/a/pmdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1814377117733531833?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"July 19, 2024/a/blockquote script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script
pThe former Top 30 player has fallen to No. 128 in the PIF ATP Rankings after recently dropping points from Mallorca and from his quarter-final run at a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/wimbledon/540/overview'Wimbledon/a last year. He is 8-15 on the season./p
pEubanks, who hit 13 aces and seven double faults according to Infosys ATP Stats, saved six of eight break points he faced. The 28-year-old has climbed to No. 105 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings, and will re-enter the Top 100 should he advance to the final./p
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pEubanks on Saturday will face his Olympics teammate, second-seeded a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/marcos-giron/gc88/overview'Marcos Giron/a, who defeated Australian a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alex-bolt/bi81/overview'Alex Bolt/a 6-4, 6-1 to set an all-American semi-final line-up in Newport for the first time since 1985 (Gullikson, Pate, Sadri and Mayotte)./p
pPlaying in front of mentor a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/andre-agassi/a092/overview'Andre Agassi/a, who is in town for this weekend’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Giron saved all three break points he faced to move into his seventh semi-final (2-4 record) and third this year (Dallas and Delray Beach)./p
p “Four Americans in the semi-finals is something we love to see, I’m pumped that we’re here,” Giron said. “I’ve known Chris for a long time so it’s great to see him stepping up this week and playing really well and I’m really proud to be teammates with him the next couple of weeks.” /p
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pGiron, now 18-17 on the season, moved back to his career-high mark of No. 44 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings after defeating Bolt in a first-time Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting. /p
pIn Saturday's other semi-final, #NextGenATP star a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alex-michelsen/m0qi/overview'Alex Michelsen/a will take on big-serving a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/reilly-opelka/o522/overview'Reilly Opelka/a, who has struck form this week after an extended layoff due to injury./p
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