WATCH: Coco Gauff and Christopher Eubanks battle it out with pizza peels in hilarious Italian Open tiebreaker challenge

American tennis stars Coco Gauff and Christopher Eubanks recently swapped their rackets for pizza peels in a friendly 10-point tiebreaker challenge with a couple of junior players at the 2024 Italian Open. The result was a lot of laughter, some impressive shots, and a victory for Gauff and her junior partner.

The duo participated in a fun pizza peel tennis challenge organized by the tournament. They were paired up with two junior players and given pizza peels, which are wooden paddles used to slide pizzas in and out of ovens, to use as rackets while their junior partners used regular rackets.

The challenge was to play a 10-point tiebreaker on a clay court set up near the Foro Italico. The rules were simple: the first team to win 10 points would win the challenge.

The video of the challenge, which was posted on the official Italian Open's X(formerly Twitter) account on Sunday, May 12, showed Gauff and Eubanks having a blast with their pizza peels. They laughed, joked, cheered, and teased each other as they tried to hit the ball with their unusual equipment.

Gauff and her junior partner proved to be more skillful with the pizza peels, as they defeated Eubanks and his junior partner, 10-6.

Watch the video below:

Gauff and Eubanks are both in Rome for their respective Italian Open campaign. In singles, third seed Gauff cruised past Magdalena Frech and Jaqueline Cristian to advance to the Round of 16, where she will face former World No. 2 Paula Badosa.

In doubles, Coco Gauff teamed up with Erin Routliffe. The third-seeded pair defeated the Chinese duo of Xiyu Wang and Yuan Yue 4-6, 6-3, 10-4 in the first round, and then beat Mirra Andreeva and Vera Zvonareva 4-6, 6-4, 10-8 in the Round of 16. They will face either Eri Hozumi/Makoto Ninomiya or fifth-seeded pair Katerina Siniakova/Taylor Townsend in the quarterfinals.

Eubanks, on the other hand, faced an early exit in his singles and doubles campaigns. The 28-year-old was defeated by Terence Atmane 6-4, 6-4 in singles. The American, along with his doubles partner John Peers, lost 7-6(4), 6-3 to the Italian pair Andrea Vavassori and Simone Bolelli in the opening round.

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Christopher Eubanks opened up about getting teary-eyed following Coco Gauff's US Open win

Coco Gauff with the 2023 US Open women's champion's trophy

Christopher Eubanks confessed that he was moved to tears by Coco Gauff’s triumph at the US Open, where she beat Aryna Sabalenka, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 in the final to claim her first Grand Slam title.

During a conversation at the Tennis Channel's Inside-In podcast in December 2023, Eubanks elaborated that it wasn't Gauff's victory itself that moved him to tears, but rather the moment when she embraced her father.

"I actually cried a little bit," Eubanks said on Tennis Channel's Inside-In podcast. "Watching her win wasn’t the real emotional part, it was watching her hug her dad at the end that really got me and you could see."

Additionally, Eubanks mentioned that he reached out to Gauff via text message to convey the impact of that touching moment on him.

"I sent her [Coco Gauff] a message, listen I don’t usually cry like that. You and your dad made me cry. Like that was a really really cool moment for me to see," he added.