Former top 30 player reacts after officially retiring from tennis, ‘I am so happy’ 

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Some of the top tennis stars are starting their preparation for 2026, but others are waving goodbye to the sport.

Lots of big names have chosen to retire or at least announce their pending retirement in 2025.

Gael Monfils will play one final year on the ATP Tour in 2026, with the former world number six enjoying a very solid career as a player.

Fabio Fognini is another player to retire in 2025, and now, another player has sailed off into the sunset to prepare for whatever comes in life after tennis.

• READ MORE: The rule change that the ATP Finals need to make

How Chris Eubanks feels after announcing his retirement

It’s only been just over two years ago that Eubanks made the quarterfinal of Wimbledon, but now his career has come to an end.

Eubanks went 29th in the world rankings with his deep run at the All England Club, but was down at 182 on the list before deciding to call time on his playing days.

Eubanks has become a brilliant pundit over 2025, and that looks like the perfect career path for him going forward, with coaching also an option.

After choosing to retire, Eubanks has opened up to the Served with Andy Roddick podcast and admitted how he feels after making the announcement.

He said: “I am so happy. I can’t tell you how happy I am. It’s going to sound so weird.

“Initially, I think you mentioned guilt, and the guilt that I felt at the beginning was that I am 29 years old. It was only two years ago that I was playing some of the best tennis of my life.

“I feel like, objectively, when I watch myself now, and I notice myself in practice, I am a better tennis player now than I was then.

“Then things were just happening, and I was swinging. I think I understand the game better now. So the guilt is like you are 29, you have time. I have seen guys like Jan-Lennard Struff have his career year at 32, then again in his mid-30s. That’s another big guy with a powerful game. I’m like, it’s not too late.
But I had to take a step back and say, would I continue to play because I feel like I am supposed to, because this is what I have always done? Or am I doing it to prove to other people that I can get back there?

“If that is the reason that I’m playing, it is not a good enough reason.

“It has to be me internally wanting to get back. It can’t be outside motivation of wanting to make sure that everyone knows I can get back there.

“I don’t really care about that. It’s how I’m feeling. When I re-frame my perspective and say alright, take yourself back to being a kid in Atlanta, who didn’t really know if I was going to be a pro. A kid who used Jarmere Jenkins and Donald Young’s hand-me-down rackets, all the way up until college.

“I never travelled internationally for a tournament. I never played a match on clay until Roland Garros in 2018. I did not do fitness until my freshman year in college.

“All of these things, when I had to reframe my perspective and say you were so fortunate that you even had a sniff of what you have been able to accomplish, beyond my wildest comprehension.

“If you told my 15-year-old self that I would have a college scholarship to play division one tennis and be top 10 in the country. I would say job well done, that’s incredible.

“So then flip that to that I turned pro, I got to play in all of the majors, I won Challenger titles. I remember watching the USTA pro circuit, watching these Challengers, going that it doesn’t look that glamorous, but it would be cool to win a Challenger.

“I remember winning my first Challenger match, and now I have four titles. That’s crazy. Main draw at the US Open, that’s crazy.

“Each of these things I have been able to accomplish and reframe back and go back to my 14-year-old self, and say, would you be upset you didn’t do more, or you could have the appreciation that the fact it happened in the first place is way stronger than any feeling of sadness or despair that you didn’t do it again.

“It’s like I was so lucky to do it the first time. That the dream of three weeks of my life aligned perfectly to allow me to keep those points for the Olympics next year.

“So I can sit here and pout and keep going because I’m supposed to because I’m only 29 or I can say that I feel at this point, I’m not as happy as I once was, and if you take a step back and look at the whole picture of what has happened, it’s like I have been far more blessed than I could ever have dreamed.”

Eubanks offers a reminder of how tricky professional tennis is

As one of the most likeable players on the tour and certainly in American tennis, it’s sad to see Eubanks retire from the game.

Eubanks won one title in Mallorca back in June 2023, and quite clearly, that was the year when he felt he was at his best.

One thing that Eubanks’ drop down the rankings does prove is that playing tennis at a professional level perhaps isn’t always the sweetness and light it looks like from the outside.

How a player can go from the top 30 and a Wimbledon quarterfinal remains to be seen and serves to highlight how players can go from hero to zero in no time at all.

Eubanks is a superb bloke and the unanimous consensus will be that he deserves every success with whatever comes next following his retirement.