Last year's darling Oudin out early -- can she fight back?
NEW YORK -- She seemed equal parts intensity and innocence, a teenager who was quintessentially American and, with a lot of hustle and enough of a forehand, worked her way into the quarterfinals and into our hearts.
Melanie Oudin was the shining star of last year's U.S. Open, the kid from next door -- actually, from the suburbs of Atlanta -- who wrote "BELIEVE" on her sneakers and wrote a new chapter in tennis, knocking off three seeded Russians before finally falling to the eventual runner-up, Caroline Wozniacki.
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| Melanie Oudin is ousted in the second round at the U.S. Open and Wimbledon; the first round at the Australian and French Open. (AP) |
"Everyone has one Cinderella story and mine was last year," Oudin said two days earlier. "That doesn't mean it's going to happen again."
It didn't, and neither did her tiny run at Wimbledon last year. Now, 12 months after stepping from anonymity, Oudin appears to be slipping back.
Her year of Grand Slams was one of early exits, the second round in this Open and Wimbledon, the first round in the Australian and French Opens.
Maybe it was illusory. Maybe the Munchkin of a kid, about whom some opponents -- mostly Jelena Jankovic after losing at Wimbledon -- sneered, "She has no game," really had no game.
Maybe she won those matches with smoke and mirrors. Or maybe, as Oudin said after drying her eyes following the loss to Bondarenko, the expectations proved too overwhelming.
"It's tough coming back," Oudin conceded, "especially after the U.S. Open I had last year, coming back and expecting to do that well again.
"I mean, of course I'm disappointed, doing so well last year and then losing in the second round this year."
She is 5-foot-6 and without a big serve. Oudin relies on quickness and determination, but against Bondarenko, Oudin seemed frozen under the weight of memories.
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This is what she had done, so, this is what she must do. She proved unable to do it again.
"I felt good going on the court," Oudin said, "and then it was like the second I got out there, I did feel really tight. I think nerves got the best of me today, a little bit, especially in the first set. Second set I started playing a lot better, making the points a little longer."
But not getting enough of them. Oudin's unimpressive serve was broken three times in the first set, four times in the second, when she also broke Bondarenko three times.
Oudin was excited to be returning to the place where a year ago, besides the two Williams sisters, she was the American who gave the Open its buzz.
She was an unknown who became instantly famous, at least over the course of a few days. Her family was swept into the headlines when it was disclosed in soap-opera fashion that her mother was having an affair with Melanie's coach.
Hollywood stuff. Headline stuff. The stuff tennis, overrun by Europeans and South Americans, needed to get attention in the U.S., even in a city as cosmopolitan as New York.
Melanie was on television, on two morning programs, on Ellen DeGeneres' show. Melanie was on a roll.
"I think it's just mentally I'm staying in there with them the whole time, and I'm not giving up at all," Oudin told everyone, the sort of fire-and-brimstone attitude of which the country couldn't get enough.
"If they're going to beat me, they're going to beat me, because I'm not going to go anywhere."
The problem was she didn't go anywhere, not after last year's Open. Oudin made it to a couple of quarterfinals in April, but in tournament after tournament since then it's been one or two rounds and out.
"I'm definitely not going backward, that's for sure," insisted Oudin, who is No. 43 in the rankings. "There have been a lot of good things about this year. I have improved. I'm definitely more mature as a player and a person."
She has learned a lot, said Oudin. She has learned that in sports, success can be hard to hold, that it can disappear as quickly as it arrives.
"I played totally different," she said. "Last year, playing with no pressure, being the complete underdog with no expectations, and then coming in this year, and even though I'm not seeded, people expect me to do extremely well. The expectations are a ton higher.
"I've played under both circumstances now. So next year, it can only be like one or the other, so I'll be used to it. I'll be able to handle it." Oudin no longer has "BELIEVE" printed on her shoes. There's a new motto, "COURAGE." Egged on by the crowd at Ashe Court, Melanie showed enough of that. She just didn't produce the shots.
"Hopefully," she said of her footwear, "next year there will be a different word."
After what happened in this Open, the most logical would be "COMEBACK."
