American teenager Alex Michelsen ends Reilly Opelka's Newport comeback in semifinals

Reilly Opelka's comeback to tour-level tennis ended Saturday at the hands of fellow American, 19-year-old Alex Michelsen, in the sem.finals of the Infosys Hall of Fame Open.

Michelsen, the No. 3 seed, returned to the final with a 6-2, 6-0 win, ending Opelka's effort in his first tournament since 2022. The teenager won 10 straight games from 2-2 in the opening set to finish the match in just 59 minutes. The youngster saved two break points in the first game of the match, and another in the hold he earned to lead 3-2, and only lost three points on serve for the rest of the match.

The Southern California native reached his first career tour-level final in Newport 12 months ago, losing to Adrian Mannarino, and will bid for his first career title against either No. 2 seed Marcos Giron or No. 4 seed Chris Eubanks, who play in Saturday's second semifinal.

"At the beginning, he was having break points on my serve and I was like, 'This is going to be one of those matches that's going to come down to the wire,' and then I honestly didn't miss a return when I touched the ball," Michelsen said afterwards. "Probably the best returning day of my life, maybe besides last year against John [Isner] in the semis, but I did it again in the semis, so I'm pretty happy with that."

Former world No. 17 Opelka, back in action as a wild card in Newport after ostensibly (sans for one ATP Challenger match last year) a two-year hiatus from tennis as a result of hip surgery and two wrist surgeries, and had recorded three three-set wins (including one over defending champion and No. 1 seed Mannarino) to become the lowest-ranked semifinalist in the ATP Tour era since 1990.

The 6-0 second set, which lasted less than a half hour, was just the sixth bagel set the big-serving Opelka had ever been served in his career, and only the third in a tour-level main-draw match.

With three break points saved against Opelka, Michelsen has now saved all seven he's faced in the tournament, and hasn't lost more than four games in a set.

Michelsen, currently ranked No. 61, is the youngest player to make back-to-back finals at the same ATP event since Carlos Alcaraz, who achieved the feat at the clay-court ATP 250 in Umag, Croatia in 2021-22. Alcaraz, also 19 then, won the tournament in 2021 and lost in the final in 2022.

"I'm usually kind of a nerd, I always look at the rankings and the live rankings, but this week I was like, 'I don't even want to know. Don't tell me,' because I knew I was going to lose a lot of points if I lost first round," Michelsen said. "I didn't think about it at all, and it served me well.

"Last year, I had zero expectations on myself, and this year, I put a lot more expectations on myself and I'm going to be taking a lot more experience into this match [in the final]."