FLUSHING MEADOWS, N.Y — Fearless. No better way to describe 17-year-old Melanie Oudin‘s performance on Thursday against a shell-shocked Elena Dementieva at the U.S. Open. Buoyed by her win over Jelena Jankovic at Wimbledon, the No. 70-ranked American came into the second-round affair with an unbending belief that she could hang with the sport’s big bangers. There was no intimidation factor against the Russian. No fear whatsoever.
The 5-foot-6 sparkplug of a baseliner came out firing against the world No. 4. The Georgian was never going to serve Dementieva off the court (and vise versa), but despite a strained thigh (she received two visits from the trainer, who taped up her leg), she went toe-to-toe from the baseline with one the WTA Tour’s premier groundstrokers and scored a gutsy two-hour/45-minute 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 win.
“I just go out there and play my game. When I play with no fear, that’s when I play my best,” said Oudin, now the USA’s No. 3 player behind only Serena and Venus Williams. “I don’t worry about anything. I just play my game, and it usually works.”
“She has a great variety,” said Dementieva, who registered nine double faults and suffered her earliest Slam loss of the year. “She can go for the slice, dropshot, and forehand winners, also. Today she was definitely in the court trying to hit down the line. She has a very solid game…The footwork is really great. She was really fighting for every point, playing everything back. She’s very patient on the court. She knows what is her strength. She’s just waiting for the moment to attack the ball.”
Two days prior, following her first-round win over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Oudin revealed that it would be a dream come true should her next match be played in the Ashe Stadium, a big-stage arena she had previously entered only as a fan. Against Dementieva, she got her wish. When she took the court, she was sporting a pair of neon pink-and-yellow adidas shoes adorned with the word “BELIEVE.” It was at the suggestion of her boyfriend, Austin Smith, that she put it there. And it proved fitting.
“It’s all about that. It’s believing that I can beat these girls and hang there with them,” Oudin explained. “If I didn’t have that, then there’s no way I would have been able to win today. Because believing in myself and my shots and playing within myself today, that’s how I won. I believe that I could do it.”
“I put her through Hell for a couple of years,” said her coach, Brian de Villiers, whom Oudin first met while he was coaching her grandmother. “She handled the occasion so well. We’ve been talking about the U.S. Open for a long time.”
Oudin served for the match at 5-3 in the third, up 40-Love, when Dementieva responded with a pair of winners. But the speedy blonde didn’t tighten up. At 40-30, she came up with the big serve she needed and put the match away.
“The whole thing was just amazing,” said Oudin of her first win over a top-five player.
