NEW YORK — Not too long ago, Maria Sharapova was a fan favorite at the U.S. Open. She was the glamour girl of the woman’s tour, a player so secure in her place in the tennis world that she referred to herself as the brand.

Well Brand Sharapova just got pushed off the shelf by a no-name generic. Actually, strike that. There is nothing generic about 17-year-old Melanie Oudin. Nor is there anything generic about the steely resolve the American teenager showed in pulling off her second straight upset of a Russian star.
Oudin, who beat Elena Dementieva on Thursday, dismissed Sharapova, 3-6, 6-4, 7-5, on Saturday. What was most impressive about the American teenager was the way she fought back after showing little in the first set. Oudin managed to capture the second set on her seventh set point.
By the start of the third set, it seemed as though Oudin had the whole city behind her at Arthur Ashe Stadium. It had been a long time since the fans here had a young American woman to get excited about, and the fans must have been wondering if they were watching the next Serena or Venus Williams, the next Jennifer Capriati, the next Tracy Austin.
And they just may have. There’s a lot to like about the 17-year-old who used a felt marker to scrawl the word fearless across her brightly colored tennis shoes.
“I tried to pretend that it wasn’t Arthur Ashe Stadium, playing Maria Sharapova,” the 70th-ranked Oudin said. “I pretended I was back home practicing and I’m just playing one of my friends.”
Back home is Marietta, Ga., a place known more for producing football players than tennis stars. Oudin first started playing tennis when her grandmother bought lessons for her and her twin sister. Oudin has stayed with Brian de Villiers, the same coach she has had since age 9, and lived at home through her junior career.
Sharapova, who was 17 when she won Wimbledon, entered the tournament ranked 29th and is coming back from shoulder surgery to correct an injury that kept her from competing in last year’s Open. She had trouble finding her serve and committed 21 double faults. Still, she credited Oudin for being able to take advantage of her struggle.
That was a lot more generous than Jelena Jankovic was at Wimbledon after she was beat by Oudin in the third round. Jankovic said she wasn’t impressed, adding that Oudin didn’t have many weapons.
“It’s shocking that she said that,” Sharapova said. “I thought she had many weapons. She certainly held her ground.”
That holding of the ground may be the 5-6 Oudin’s biggest weapon as she faces yet another richer and taller Russian, 13th seed Nadia Petrova, in the fourth round. Oudin, who is clearly aware of Jankovic’s ungenerous critique of her game, believes she brings a very important intangible to the court.
“I think someone’s biggest weapon can be mental toughness,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be a stroke or shot or anything out there. If you’re mentally tough, you can beat anyone.”
She may get a chance to test that theory as there is some feeling that she has already knocked off the two toughest players on her side of the bracket. Yes, No. 1 Dinara Safina stands in her path, but Safina hasn’t been playing at the top of her game so it’s not impossible to imagine that Oudin could find herself playing one of the Williams sisters at the end of all this.
Said Oudin: “My goal was to make the top 50. But if I keep playing like this, who knows? Hopefully, I can get as high as anything.”