Latent heat: Melanie Oudin

Although she had a remarkable junior career reaching #2 in the junior rankings, 17 years old American Melanie Oudin got into the spotlight last Wimbledon reaching the Last-16 round as qualifier after upsetting former WTA #1 and 6th seed Jelena Jankovic. She came back from a set down in all her three Main Draw matches against Bammer, Shvedova and Jankovic.


Now in the US Open she is delighting American crowd with an even more amazing run. After sweeping promising Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the 1st round, Oudin has consecutively upsetted WTA #4 Elena Dementieva, former WTA #1 Maria Sharapova and 13th seed Nadia Petrova to get her place in the quarter-finals. There she will try to extend her run upsetting WTA #8 Caroline Wozniacki. Oudin already counts with the suppport of the local crowd, who dreams with a final between the little "Legend Killer" and Serena Williams.


Only 1.68m tall, Oudin's gamestyle differs from most of youngsters nowadays and she compensates her lack of power with a great variety of shots and her fighting spirit. American fans have finally found in this fresh blonde teenager a new hero to take over veterans Lindsay Davenport and Venus and Serena Williams.