U.S. Teen Upsets Jelena Jankovic at Wimbledon

Los Angeles Times ^ | June 27, 2009 | Chuck Culpepper

[nickcarraway]

Melanie Oudin, 17, beats No. 6 ranked Jankovic in a 6-7, 7-5, 6-2 win.

A 17-year-old Atlantan who hadn't won a Grand Slam match before last Tuesday just became the only female American not surnamed Williams to withstand Wimbledon's ruthless first week.

Melanie Oudin turned up across from the first top-10 opponent of her life this afternoon, and she treated No. 6 Jelena Jankovic of Serbia much as she had No. 26 Sybille Bammer and No. 74 Yaroslava Shvedova.

She used her compelling movement around the court to prove maddeningly impenetrable to her higher-ranked opponent, and she rebounded from a first-set loss in her 6-7 (8), 7-5, 6-2 win, much as she had beaten Bammer by 4-6, 6-4, 6-2, and Shvedova by 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.

"I was just thinking that she was any other player and this was any other match and I was at any other tournament," she said, and her daydream run stirred on into the coveted second week.

There, she'll find a fourth-round match on Monday against No. 14 Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, and as for where this accomplishment lies on a 1-to-10 scale, "Well, I'm going to answer that after the tournament's over, because it could get higher as the tournament goes on," she said.

As a 9-year-old watching Wimbledon on TV and studying her fellow fourth-rounders Venus and Serena Williams, Oudin (pronounced oo-DAN) said to her mother, "Mom, I really, really want to play there one day."

[Michael Barnes]

I’m only here for the women tennis pics.

[freedumb2003]

You know no one actually follows tennis anymore.

It is up there with Hockey, MILS and the WNBA.

[RandallFlagg]

Same here..

[razorback-bert]

[BBell]

WATCH OUT!!!!

[Always Right]

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

What did she do to upset her? /ducking

[mtnwmn]

She played very well in spite of what Jankovic says.

[Michael Barnes]

Color me satisfied.

[staytrue]

Outside of the Williams sisters, US women’s tennis has been non existant.

Any new american face that is not a williams is big news in tennis.

[RayChuang88]

By the way, a lot of the foreign players that are good nowadays aren't as "foreign" as you think. A LOT of them train at tennis academies located all over central to southern Florida, just like many foreign track and field stars take advantage of being a member of a college track and field team.

[CounterCounterCulture]

Melanie could have easily folded after losing that first set tie-breaker. It was good to see her win and give hopes to American women’s tennis hopes (Serena and Venus can’t play forever).