Opelka at BNP Paribas Showdown

Palm Coast native Reilly Opelka, who now trains at the USTA Regional Training Center in Boca Raton, and Maryland’s Francis Tiafoe have been announced as the promising American tennis juniors who will take to the national stage during an exhibition at the BNP Paribas Showdown at Madison Square Garden on March 3, 2014, as part of the World Tennis Day celebration in the U.S.

The two 16-year-olds will play an exhibition match prior to the two main feature matches — Novak Djokovic squaring off against Andy Murray in singles, and Bob and Mike Bryan taking on John and Patrick McEnroe in doubles.

Last year he logged third-round showings at the Orange Bowl and Eddie Herr International Junior Tennis Championships, as well as the US Open junior tournament.

It is a celebration of tennis around the world that includes professional tennis matches in New York City, Hong Kong and London, and more than 1,000 Play Events in March across the U.S.

College MatchDay is a weekly series highlighting marquee team matches featuring the best programs, players and coaches around the country.

“College tennis is such amazing and exciting competition, and College MatchDay is a way to shine a light on schools, teams, players and coaches,” said Virgil Christian, the USTA’s director of collegiate tennis.

Every MatchDay that will be delivered on ESPN3 will follow a unique, experimental format, as proposed by an advisory group of NCAA Division I athletic directors: all six singles matches will be played first, best of three tiebreak sets, with each singles match worth one point toward the team total (four points are required to win the team match).

In the case of a 3-3 tie after the singles matches, three doubles matches — played using 10-point super tiebreakers — will be used to determine the winner in what amounts to college tennis’ version of “overtime.” The team that wins two of the three doubles matches wins the team match.