Chris Eaton (tennis)

Chris Eaton
Country (sports) United Kingdom Great Britain
Residence East Horsley Surrey, England, UK
Born (1987-11-27) 27 November 1987
Guildford, Surrey, England
Height 6 ft 2 in (188 cm)[1]
Turned pro 2007
Retired 25 June 2012
Plays Right-handed (one-handed backhand)
Prize money $168,596
Singles
Career record 2–2 (in ATP Tour and Grand Slam main draws, and in Davis Cup)
Career titles 0
Highest ranking No. 317 (15 June 2009)
Grand Slam Singles results
Wimbledon 2R (2008)
Doubles
Career record 3–5 (ATP Tour and Grand Slam main draws, and in Davis Cup)
Career titles 0
Highest ranking No. 147 (2 May 2011)
Grand Slam Doubles results
Wimbledon 3R (2010)
Team competitions
Davis Cup Euro/Africa Zone Group I 1R (2009)
Last updated on: 25 April 2016.

Christopher Philip Eaton (born 27 November 1987) is a retired British tennis player. He reached his career-high singles ranking of World No. 317 in June 2009 and his career-high doubles ranking of World No. 147 in May 2011.

In February 2009, Eaton played what was then, the longest tennis match in history, lasting 6 hrs 40 mins, eventually beating James Ward. This was a play-off match to decide the Davis Cup team, but it was not sanctioned by the ATP so was not an official record, and it was broken later.[2]

Early and personal life

He learnt to play tennis at Reed's School. He was nicknamed the "Eaton Rifle" due to his big serve.[3]

Junior career

Eaton reached a career high of No. 97 in April 2005 at age 17 and 4 months. In his only singles main draw junior grand slam match, and his final match as a junior, he lost to Donald Young at Wimbledon in 2005, 1–6, 5–7.[4]

Senior career

2007

Eaton's best results in 2007 were two Futures championships in doubles in Israel and Great Britain, and a singles semifinal appearance in Israel F4 in November, where he beat No. 839 Amir Hadad. He finished 2007 ranked No. 656 in singles play.

2008

Eaton made little singles progress in the first 4 months of the year. But he had much success in doubles, making the doubles finals of 5 Futures and winning two of them.

In June, he had a breakthrough singles win in the 2nd round of qualifying at Nottingham, beating his first top-100 opponent, No. 90 Guillermo García López, before losing to No. 111 Vince Spadea in the final qualifying round. He followed that up the next week as a wild card by qualifying in singles for the Wimbledon Championships, beating No. 140 Mikhail Kukushkin, No. 206 Jan Minář, and No. 162 Olivier Patience, scoring 32 aces in that match. He was also given a wild card into the main doubles draw with Alexander Slabinsky.

In the Wimbledon Championships first round he beat Serbia's Boris Pasanski 6–3 7–6(8–6) 6–4.[5] He then faced Russia's Dmitry Tursunov, the number 25 seed in the second round on Court One, his first show-court appearance, but he could not continue his winning streak and Eaton lost 6–7(2), 2–6, 4–6.[6] As a result of his performance at Wimbledon, Eaton's ranking rose to a career high of 386, which made him eligible for Challenger events.

2009

Having played little more than a few Futures at the start of the year, Eaton was thrust into play-offs, between six British tennis hopefuls, designed by John Lloyd to help pick the two singles players to represent Great Britain in the Euro/Africa Zone Group I tie against Ukraine.

Eaton started well, defeating Alexander Slabinsky 6–4 6–4 2–6 7–6 (7–5). He then beat James Ward 6–3 6–2 6–7 (3–7) 2–6 21–19 in a gruelling match lasting six hours and 40 minutes,[2][7] making it the longest match in history prior to the epic Isner-Mahut match at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships. Lloyd had decided he had seen enough, and chose Eaton and Joshua Goodall as the two players to represent Britain alongside Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins.

Eaton lost his first Davis Cup match 6–3, 3–6, 6–3, 6–4 to Ukrainian number 1 Sergiy Stakhovsky but managed to restore some pride to Team GB, who were on the verge of a whitewash before Eaton managed to beat Illya Marchenko 6–3, 4–6, 7–6 in the remaining dead rubber. Despite putting in one of the better performances by British players other than Andy Murray in the Davis Cup recently, Eaton didn't appear in the plans of captain John Lloyd for forthcoming fixtures.

2010

At Wimbledon Eaton and doubles partner Dominic Inglot beat the defending champions Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic in the second round,[8] to achieve his best Slam result with a third round appearance.

Eaton began playing touchtennis as a pastime against other former professional tennis players as well as current park players and rank amateurs. He has won one title and hosted a weekly tennis phone in show on the sports website.[9]

2012

Eaton played his last match in the Wimbledon qualifying second round.

2016

Chris Eaton joined the Wake Forest men's tennis staff as an assistant coach in the 2016-17 season.

He coaches doubles players John Peers and Henri Kontinen.[3]

References

  1. ↑ ITF Men's profile
  2. 1 2 "Chris Eaton shows stamina with epic Davis Cup play-off win". Telegraph. 25 February 2009.
  3. 1 2 "Marcus Willis is following in the footsteps of 'Eaton Rifle' Chris Eaton as he prepares for dream Roger Federer clash at Wimbledon". Daily Mail. 28 June 2016.
  4. ↑ ITF Junior Activity for Eaton, itftennis.com; accessed 11 July 2016.
  5. ↑ "Chris Eaton in stunning Wimbledon win against Boris Pasanski". Times. 25 June 2008.
  6. ↑ "Eaton undone by classy Tursunov". BBC Sport. 26 June 2008.
  7. ↑ "THAT WAS THE SPORTING WEEK". Mail Online. 26 February 2009.
  8. ↑ "Wimbledon 2010: Chris Eaton and Dominic Inglot triuimph". BBC Sport. 26 June 2010.
  9. ↑ Profile, touchtennis.com; accessed 11 July 2016.
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