She slays Russians

She's done it again! First Dementieva and now Sharpova! Melanie Oudin, the story of the first week of the U.S. Open, beat Maria Sharapova today: 3-6, 6-4, 7-5. And, as Tennis magazine's Tom Perrotta noted on Twitter: "Add this to the long, long list of things to like about Melanie Oudin: No noise. Maybe she'll start a trend."

Much already has been written about the pink and yellow tennis shoes Oudin sports (which she designed), in which the word "Believe" is inscribed on the side of the shoes. There's no way to make a beautiful segue here, but I played doubles today, and experienced firsthand that kind of belief ... fleetingly. My partner and I were up 5-4 in the first set. We were playing very well. She was solid on the back court and I was doing well at the net. So, what happened? We dropped the next three games, losing the first set 5-7. Then we proceeded to go away, in sports parlance, and lost the second set 2-6. Really painful, because I now believe that we could have won the match. So much to learn by losing. Am looking forward to seeing Oudin take on another Russian, Nadia Petrova.