It's not quite the case that Melanie Oudin, 17, and her family knew for sure she would get this far, this fast.
Not when Melanie was 7, hitting buckets of tennis balls with Grandma Mimi back home in Marietta, Ga. Not a couple of years later, when Melanie and her twin sister began taking lessons together. And certainly not when Melanie lost her first two Grand Slam matches.
Still, there was Oudin at the U.S. Open yesterday, ranked 70th, dealing with a painful leg and an overwhelming occasion on a big stage -- and stunning No. 4-seeded Elena Dementieva 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 to set up a third-round match vs. 2006 champion Maria Sharapova.
All the while, Oudin sported this word stamped near the heel of her sneakers: "BELIEVE." The idea for that bit of inspiration came from her boyfriend, Austin Smith, a 15-year-old who helped Melanie prepare for her Arthur Ashe Stadium debut by practicing together in the 23,763-seat arena at 9:30 yesterday morning.
"During the match, I had confidence, and, I mean, I was right there with her the entire time," Oudin said. "She wasn't blowing me off the court. She wasn't hitting winners left and right on me."
Dementieva played rather well -- displaying the stinging groundstrokes that carried her to two Grand Slam finals and an Olympics gold medal -- and graciously gave credit to Oudin, who will face the scrutiny that comes with being the "Next Great American Hope."
After the Williams sisters at No. 2 and 3, you have to scan all the way down to Oudin to find the next U.S. woman in the WTA rankings.
"It's just the beginning," Dementieva said, "but it looks like she has a good future."
Oudin -- pronounced "oo-DAN," owing to her father's French ancestry -- has a pretty good present, too. This was not, after all, her first such upset at a major tournament: Oudin reached the fourth round at Wimbledon by beating former No. 1 Jelena Jankovic.
"She knows," said Brian de Villiers, Oudin's coach, "that she can play with these girls now."
Next comes what figures to be a stern test against three-time major champion Sharapova, who eliminated another 17-year-old American, Christina McHale of Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 6-2, 6-1 at night. The 381st-ranked McHale was a wild-card entry who didn't really challenge Sharapova.
Looking ahead to facing Oudin, Sharapova said: "I definitely have to go out there and expect her to play some of her best tennis."
Jankovic made another early exit from a Grand Slam tournament, losing to 55th-ranked Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan 6-3, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (6). Jankovic reached the U.S. Open final in 2008, and she was seeded No. 5 this year, but her head might not have been focused on the court on this day: Her grandmother died on Wednesday night.
The losses by Dementieva and Jankovic mean half of the top 20 seeded women are out of the draw. No. 23 Sabine Lisicki also is gone, having left in tears as she was taken away in a wheelchair after injuring her ankle at the end of a 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 defeat against Anastasia Rodionova.
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