Frances Tiafoe became the third tennis player to participate
in the NBA-All-Star-Celebrity Game. Previously, the Canadians
Milos Raonic and
Eugenie Bouchard had participated.
The exhibition game featured several stars from the
world of entertainment and sports in a game organized by the NBA in Utah.
American actor and director Ben Affleck presented the teams, which this year
had businessman Ryan Smith and former basketball player Dwayne Wade as
captains.
Tiafoe played with Team Wade and received a standing
ovation when introduced by two-time Academy award-winner: “He took the tennis world by storm
this summer at the US Open. Let's see if he can do the same on the basketball
court — Frances Tiafoe,"
'Big-foe' has commented
several times that he is a big basketball fan, and commented that he was
training for a few weeks for the exhibition: "I think I will
just go out there and have fun. I mean I don’t want to look dumb, that’s why
I’ve been training the past couple of weeks,” 24-year-old player said.
“But it is about just
having fun and obviously, All Star Weekend, everyone is there, you meet so many
cool people and people that I’ve been fans of forever. To see they want me
there and call me a celebrity, I’m truly blessed and hopefully, it is the first
of many."
In the first week of
March,
Carlos Alcaraz was scheduled to play an exhibition against
Rafael Nadal,
but after the injury suffered by 22-time Grand Slam champion, Alcaraz will have
to play against the winner of the match between
Taylor Fritz and Tiafoe.