Oudin seeks comeback from slump
The darling of US tennis at 17 says her confidence is slowly returning after a three-year slump
Melanie Oudin looked down at the floor, clasped her hands together, and tried to explain how her game could spiral downwards so quickly.
How could a player whose well-publicised mantra "Believe" propelled her to the quarter-finals of the 2009 US Open as a wide-eyed, can't-believe-it's-happening-to-me 17-year-old suddenly lose her confidence? Slowly, painfully, the words came out.
"I've learned so much over the past few years," Oudin (pictured) said. "I've already been through the ups and the downs of tennis, the highs and the lows, doing extremely well and extremely badly.
"I've been through pretty much everything, which is crazy when I'm only 20. Hopefully, I've come out of the biggest slump that I'll have in my career. It just happened really early."
Oudin stunned the tennis world three years ago when she bounced four high-profile Russians from the US Open, including two-time grand slam finalist Elena Dementieva and world No2 Maria Sharapova.
With her bubbly demeanour and endless energy, Oudin was the talk of Flushing Meadows, with fans cramming into New York City's Arthur Ashe Stadium just to get a peek at America's newest darling.
The diminutive, blue-eyed blonde reached No31 in the world in early 2010 before the losses came in bunches, so many that her ranking plummeted to 370.