Interview with Sports Illustrated

SI.com: Growing up, you chose to be homeschooled while your twin sister, Katherine, decided to go the more traditional route. Have you ever played together?

Oudin: Not since 14-year-olds-and-under. We had different goals after that. She still plays for her high school team in Atlanta and they won states. I decided to be homeschooled in seventh grade at 13. That was the first time we were ever separated. We both support each other despite our different goals. Sometimes it's good to go different ways.

          With how much I improved in the first year at home, I knew it was the right choice.

Homeschooler Melanie Oudin is a Star at U.S. Open & Full Of Upsets

NEW YORK -- At any Grand Slam where Melanie Oudin wasn't becoming a star, any of these other women would make a fine story.

Their names are Caroline Wozniacki, Kateryna Bondarenko and Yanina Wickmayer.

Like Oudin, they won matches Monday to make it to their first Grand Slam quarterfinals. Like Oudin, they are two wins away from the final and a possible meeting with Serena Williams for the U.S. Open title.

Nice stories, indeed, at a tournament that has been turned upside down.

But not nearly enough to knock Oudin, the 17-year-old sparkplug from Marietta, Ga., out of the headlines.

"Nice for a change that somebody's coming up we haven't heard about much before," said none other than men's No. 1 Roger Federer, who blew out No. 14 Tommy Robredo to win his 38th straight match at Flushing Meadows.

For the record, nobody asked Oudin what she thought about Federer on this day.

The 70th-ranked player in the world, sharing a room with her mom at a hotel in Manhattan, put together another come-from-behind upset in Queens, 1-6, 7-6 (2), 6-3 over 13th-seeded Nadia Petrova.

With a raucous home crowd behind her, she came from behind to defeat Petrova 1-6, 7-6 and 6-3. "A star is born!" sportscaster Dick Enberg said after the match. "Don't underestimate what this woman can do.”

A Star is Born

A Cinderella Story

Expect her to be wear her now famous shoes, which say "Believe."