By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com NEW YORK --- This is Hollywood stuff. A young woman with "Believe" on her sneakers and fearlessness in her constitution shows up at the biggest tennis tournament in America and proves irresistible and at this point unbeatable.
Melanie Oudin is a human backboard, a dyed-blonde Energizer Bunny.
She's a teen queen who acts as if she doesn't take herself seriously but talks as if she someday is going to take over her whole sport, which is not beyond the realm of possibility.
What she lacks on serve -- she's only 5-6 -- she makes up in nerve, never giving up in a match when falling behind, as she invariably seems to do, or on a point, even on balls seemingly hit beyond her limited reach.
Oudin knocked out yet another Russian on Monday in this U.S. Open, the fourth in four matches, outhustling, outracing and eventually outplaying befuddled Nadia Petrova 1-6, 7-6, 6-3 and at age 17 becoming the youngest quarterfinalist since Serena Williams in 1999.
It was great theater at Arthur Ashe Court for a sellout crowd of 24,000, which provincially, and not undeservedly, proved loudly biased for Oudin.
At match point, fans stood and hollered the way they do in the top of the ninth when Yankees need only one more out and Mariano Rivera needs only one more strike.
What Oudin, the kid from Marietta, Ga., in the Atlanta suburbs, needs is nothing. She's got it all -- enthusiasm, dyed blonde hair and just enough naivete to endear her to anyone -- except her opponents.
Oudin lost the first set to No. 4 seed Elena Dementieva in the second round, lost the first set to former champion Maria Sharapova in the third round and then lost the first set to Petrova, the No. 13 seed.
"I actually don't mean to lose the first set," she told a group of media, drawing a large laugh. But such innocence is perfectly acceptable, especially with U.S tennis in great need for some heroines beyond Serena and Venus Williams.
Asked to describe what she has done, Oudin, who came to the tournament No. 70 in the rankings, said, "It's kind of hard. Like today there are no tears because I believed I could do it. And it's now like I belong here."
She belongs, all right. You don't drop the first set in 31 minutes, fall behind 4-3 in the second and then flail and rip your way to a victory if you don't belong.
"It was tough," Oudin said. "She was all over me. But I kept fighting."
That's a virtue long prized, the never-say-die spirit, the against-all-odds victory. You keep thinking Oudin has no chance against those taller, harder-serving women. It's they who have no chance, and they continue to offer repetitive explanations that make it appear Oudin is doing it with smoke, mirrors and crowd noise.
"She's done very well," Petrova conceded. "I mean, she won quite a few very good matches, and it's a lot of pressure and a big stadium. The first time you feel so excited and everything is so new and kind of like you have absolutely nothing to lose and you go and do it."
She's done it. Petrova implied she allowed Oudin to do it.
"I have a feeling I didn't finish the job," Petrova said. "At 4-3, having 40-15 in the game, I went for my shot down the line. That didn't go in. Then the next point was a long rally, and she came up with an unbelievable winner down the line.
"Winning that game kind of gave her a second breath. She realized, 'OK, I'm back in the game.' And probably after winning previous matches, she thought, 'I can do it again.'"
She always thinks that way.
"She gets pretty much in her own zone," said her father, John Oudin. "Nothing breaks her focus. I don't know where she gets it from."
Wherever, mental toughness is perhaps an athlete's most important asset. Hang in there, coaches tell players. Don't quit. It's obvious Oudin never quits.
"Mentally, I'm staying in there with them the whole time and not giving up at all," Oudin said. "So they're going to have to beat me, because I'm not going anywhere."
Literally, she did go someplace, to Times Square on her day off, Sunday, for a photo shoot. It turned into a near free-for-all, photogs and fans battling each other for a picture or an autograph.
"Melanie is not used to that," John Oudin said. "She said to me, 'This is going to take some getting used to.' She's not used to being recognized all over."
Nor is she used to becoming a quarterfinalist in a Grand Slam, but she likes the feeling.
"This is my dream forever," Melanie said. "I've worked so hard for this, and it's finally happening. It's amazing."
It's Hollywood. Except it's real. As Oudin has on the sides of her shoes, "Believe."
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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/12171877© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.
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