{"id":392545,"date":"2026-01-06T21:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T21:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/392545\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T21:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T21:38:08","slug":"eubanks-joins-espns-ao-commentary-team-tennis-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/392545\/","title":{"rendered":"Eubanks Joins ESPN\u2019s AO Commentary Team \u2013 Tennis Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Richard Pagliaro | Tuesday, January 6, 2026
Photo credit: ESPN<\/p>\n

Two months after closing the curtain on his playing career, Christopher Eubanks will make an Australian Open TV debut.<\/p>\n

Eubanks has joined ESPN\u2019s commentary team for the network\u2019s 2026 Australian Open coverage this month.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Australian Open main draw is set for January 18-February 1st. ESPN, which has not yet issued its official AO television schedule, announced \u201cevery [Australian Open] match [will be] available all in one place on the ESPN App.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katie George\u00a0will serve as ESPN host during the first week of the tournament, with\u00a0Malika Andrews\u00a0as host for the second, including the championship weekend. Kris Budden\u00a0will report from Melbourne Park, delivering on-site updates, interviews, and feature stories.<\/p>\n

Several experienced play-by-play announcers, including\u00a0Chris Fowler, Chris McKendry,\u00a0Patrick McEnroe,\u00a0Jason Goodall\u00a0and\u00a0Mike Monaco will call the AO Action. Long-time voice of ESPN tennis Cliff Drysdale retired from the network at the 2025 US Open.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Match and studio analysis will feature former players including\u00a0John McEnroe,\u00a0Chris Evert,\u00a0Caroline Wozniacki,\u00a0Mary Joe Fernandez,\u00a0James Blake,\u00a0Sam Querrey,\u00a0Chris Eubanks\u00a0and\u00a0CoCo Vandeweghe. Eubanks, Querrey, who has grown into a top TV analyst, and Vandeweghe all served as analysts for TNT\u2019s Roland Garros coverage last spring and also do commentary work for Tennis Channel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re excited about our Australian Open 2026 talent lineup, said\u00a0Linda Schulz, Vice President of Production, ESPN. \u201cThe goal was to combine strong storytelling with trusted voices. We are especially thrilled to welcome longtime tennis fan and accomplished host, Malika Andrews. With the addition of Andrews and Eubanks, and the return of Wozniacki, our coverage will provide a vast perspective on the sport of tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n

ESPN Deportes commentators\u00a0Luis Alfredo Alvarez,\u00a0Jose Luis Clerc,\u00a0Eduardo Varela\u00a0and\u00a0Daniel Orsanic\u00a0will call matches in Spanish, with\u00a0Agostina Larroca\u00a0reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Richard Pagliaro | Tuesday, January 6, 2026Photo credit: ESPN Two months after closing the curtain on his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-392545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}