Rising stars have golden opportunity in Atlanta

There's a reason why they call Atlanta the John Isner Open: The American veteran has won it five of the last six years. But he won't win it in 2019—in fact, the winner is guaranteed to be 11 to 14 years his junior.

Isner fell in three tiebreaks on Wednesday to Reilly Opelka, his younger, taller counterpart, and now, all four of this weekend's semifinalists are 23 and under: Opelka (21), Alex de Minaur (20), Cameron Norrie (23) and Taylor Fritz (21).

So much of the air on the ATP Tour this year has been sucked up by Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. But this smaller week of tennis offers a chance to look at some of these high-potential up-and-comers, all of whom have already been making noise on tour. Here's what they've been up to lately:

A year or so ago, Reilly Opelka looked kind of like a less skilled Isner. But that hasn't been the case this season at all. He actually outplayed Isner this year on three different occasions: in a four-setter at the Australian Open, in the New York Open and this week in Atlanta. The New York win punched Opelka a ticket to his first ATP final, which he won in three sets over Brayden Schnur. The win helped his ranking climb into the 50s, putting Opelka in position for his first US Open main-draw appearance.

Opelka's semifinal opponent has the edge of having already beaten the American earlier this year, and it was en route to a maiden title of his own. Alex de Minaur defeated Opelka, 6-4, 7-6 (5), in the second round of of the Sydney International, and went on to win the tournament, in straight sets over Andreas Seppi. His ranking now sits at No. 34.

Like the previous two players, Taylor Fritz, too, won his first title in 2019, on the Eastbourne grass, defeating serious players Hubert Hurkacz, Kyle Edmund and Sam Querrey, all in straight sets. The 21-year-old is now ranked No. 32, thanks to performances that lived up to the hype that's long followed him.

The former TCU Horned Frog is another player to have broken through on the hard courts in 2019, and he did it in part against his Atlanta opponent, Fritz. Cameron Norrie started his season in Auckland with a string of four wins, including a 7-6 (3), 6-3 one over Fritz. That took him to his first final, where he lost to Tennys Sandgren. The 23-year-old is ranked No. 54.

It's been a season of firsts for these four players. Once the dust has settled in Atlanta, it'll also have been someone's second.