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After scoring the biggest upset of the first round at the 2019 Australian Open, 21-year-old Reilly Opelka will look to continue that momentum when he takes on Italian Thomas Fabbiano.
For those in the United States looking to watch, the match is scheduled to start late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning around 12:30 a.m. ET. It won’t be on the regular ESPN2 TV broadcast, but you can watch the entire match live on your computer, phone or streaming device via ESPN+, the new digital streaming service from ESPN (no cable subscription necessary) that will have coverage of all non-televised 2019 Australian Open matches.
You can sign up for a free seven-day trial of ESPN+ right here, and you can then watch a live stream of Opelka vs Fabbiano on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One or other compatible streaming device via the ESPN app.
Opelka vs Fabbiano Preview
Reilly Opelka’s first-round match against John Isner was essentially a real-life version of the famous Spiderman gif.
Isner, a 6-foot-10 American with a huge serve, took on Opelka, a 6-foot-11 American with a huge serve. Unsurprisingly, there were a whole lot of aces (40 for Opelka, 47 for Isner), very few breaks (one for each player) and a handful of tiebreakers. Each set, in fact, went the distance, and it was the younger Reilly, ranked 102nd in the world, taking down his compatriot, ranked 10th, in four sets.
Still, even after his first match win at a Grand Slam, and after just his second career victory against a Top-10 opponent, Opelka was remained reserved in his excitement.
“It’s a big win, yeah, but it’s not like a breakthrough win,” he said. “I’m still barely top 100 so I still have a lot of progress I feel like has to be done, to improve, to continue to get my ranking up.
“Physically, just being healthier, being stronger, just making sure my body doesn’t break down during the year.”
In the second round, Opelka gets pretty much the exact opposite in terms of a matchup when he faces 29-year-old Italian Thomas Fabbiano, a defensive player who ranks 100th in the world and is listed at 5-foot-8. In his first-round win over wild-card Jason Kubler, Fabbiano had just three aces but won 31 percent of his receiving points and picked up four breaks.
The victory for Fabbiano was also his first at the Australian Open, though he has advanced to the third round at Wimbledon (2018) and the US Open (2017).
Whoever advances will likely get a match against 2018 Australian Open quarterfinalist (and 2017 semifinalist) Grigor Dimitrov, who takes on Pablo Cuevas in the second round.