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Friday, Jul. 25, 2008

Brit upsets No. 2 seed in rise through rankings

Unseeded Georgie Stoop has never won at the Challenger level, but Thursday she stopped the Fifth Third Bank Tennis Championships' No. 2 seed in three sets.

“I'm a lot better than my ranking,” said the Brit, ranked 363rd, largely due to a foot with three stress fractures that sidelined her for most of last year. Stoop constantly put Varvara Lepchenko of Uzbekistan on the defensive and scored a 7-5, 1-6, 6-3 second-round upset. Lepchenko is ranked 152nd, but has been as high as 84th and played four Grand Slam events consecutively starting with the ‘06 U.S. Open.

Stoop has never played a Slam, but she is on a roll. The week before in Stanford, Cal., she had three-set wins over Olga Puchkova and Olga Savchuk. To pass these women, crack the Top 100 and stay there, she said, “I just to have to play these sort of ranked players every week.”

Stoop has a huge test on Friday. Her quarterfinal opponent is eighth-seeded Melanie Oudin, whose 270 adult ranking is deceiving. The 16-year-old from Georgia is transitioning from the juniors where she is No. 3 in the world. Thursday, Oudin cruised by Kimberly Couts 6-1, 6-1. Stoop said, “I know I'll have to play a lot better against her.”

The comeback tour of Xavier Malisse — once No. 19 in the world — pitted him against rising star Rhyne Williams of Knoxville.

“The kid serves well, but if I got him on the run, he was a little wild,” said Malisse, who has worked out with Williams a number of times at Florida's Bollettieri Tennis Academy. The veteran won 6-3, 6-1, but said, “I really have to focus on a match like this … where you know you should win.”

“(Malisse) doesn't miss much,” said Williams, who will play the U.S. Open Juniors, then a year of pro tournaments before deciding on collegiate tennis or the USTA Pro Tour Circuit.

Williams had another stadium court highlight an hour before his match when third-seeded Robert Kendrick — who had just emerged from another hard, three-setter over Rajeev Ram — asked him if he could warm him up. “I'm trying to help some of these young guys out,” Kendrick said. “I sure wasn't playing events like this when I was his age.”