US Open Takeaways: #13, The kids are alright

This 17-point roundup is about the men and women who put it all on or inside the lines at the rowdiest major event of the season. The hits started early, and they simply kept coming.

See No. 14 here.

13

After an emphatic start, the momentum of the ATP World Tour's ballyhooed Next Gen stars ended up a bit poo-pooed by the time this US Open concluded.

There was Andrey Rublev, 19 years young and the sole representative of that #NextGen clan in the men's quarterfinal round.

And qualifier Denis Shapovalov's fourth-round run.

Rublev and his peers made noise befitting the New York stage. Borna Coric uprooted all of contemporary Alexander Zverev's buzz coming into this event by beating him in dramatic fashion in four second-round sets, finishing the job in two tiebreaks.

Among American ranks, another 19-year-old upstart, Frances Tiafoe, came to play against Roger Federer, giving the Swiss Mister a run for it over five sets in a display of impressive shotmaking that saw experience ultimately win out.

Tiafoe toughened up in that match, which provided him plenty of tactical fodder to gnaw on for the rest of this year, frankly. Plenty of takeaways.

Federer himself saw a simpler couple rounds after that, facing down a pair of relative peers, two 35-year-olds in Mikhail Youzhny and Feliciano Lopez, to make the fourth round. Tiafoe gave him the best fight of that lot, and with his showing against a player nearly twice his age, we know that these kids will be quite all right.

Follow Jon on Twitter @jonscott9.