Haynes pulls off upset of Maleeva

The Associated Press

NEW YORK -- As a tot, Angela Haynes hit her first tennis strokes on the same Compton courts that produced Serena and Venus Williams.

Now 19 and ranked 185th, Haynes tasted her first bit of the Grand Slam success so familiar to the Williams sisters, upsetting 22nd-seeded Magdalena Maleeva 6-2, 6-3 to reach the U.S. Open's third round Wednesday night.

"Everybody peaks at different times, so maybe I am a late bloomer," said Haynes, a wild card. "But I just have to stay within myself, play my game, do what I do best.

On a Day 3 of the Open that included just-as-expected victories by past major champions Lleyton Hewitt and Jennifer Capriati, and none-too-surprising exits by Gustavo Kuerten and Mark Philippoussis, Haynes got a chance in the spotlight.

She lost in the first round of last year's Open, then lost in the first round of qualifying at the Australian Open in January. That was the sum of Haynes' Slam experience until Monday, when she beat Tatiana Perebiynis in a third-set tiebreaker.

Haynes handled Maleeva quite impressively in the 6,106-seat Grandstand, the largest arena she's played in, hanging tough even after wasting three match points. Haynes never lost her serve, and kept her unforced errors to a minimum: 14 in all.

"Here is the best place to win, get back to where I was and maybe better," Haynes said. "Definitely, it is my biggest win, but I can't dwell on this match. I really have to stay focused here."

Even if she loses to No. 16 Francesca Schiavone in the third round, she's guaranteed to make $40,000 -- more than the total prize money on offer at several of the minor league tournaments she struggled at this year.

That's also a nice payday considering all the sacrifices her family made through the years to support her tennis career, sacrifices her father, Fred, said included sleeping in his car. He's hoping a good Open will translate into a sponsorship deal; Angela Haynes and Venus Williams have the same agent.

"We're not done," Fred Haynes said in a hallway near the locker rooms at Arthur Ashe Stadium, getting slaps on the back and thumb's-ups from passers-by. "We didn't come to be a participant. We came to do some damage."

That didn't seem likely coming in. Just last week, Haynes failed to even qualify for a hard-court tuneup in New Haven, Conn., the third time in 2004 she didn't make it into the main draw of a WTA Tour event.

At her most recent full-fledged tour appearance, she lost in straight sets to Lindsay Lee-Waters -- who happened to be Serena Williams' opponent Wednesday.

Williams, who warmed up in 75-degree heat wearing a black jacket and zip-away faux boots, won 6-4, 6-3 to set up a third-round match against No. 30 Tatiana Golovin.

Capriati joined her in the third round by winning the first eight games and the last four of a 6-0, 6-2 victory over Magui Serna, while No. 2 Amelie Mauresmo got past 105th-ranked Julia Vakulenko 3-6, 6-2, 6-2. Mauresmo overcame 34 unforced errors, with 10 double-faults.

"I started very slow in the first set," said Mauresmo, an Olympic silver medalist. "I'm looking forward to improve my game because I am not satisfied now."

Both singles bronze medalists in Athens, No. 14 Fernando Gonzalez and No. 17 Alicia Molik, lost, as did three-time French Open champion Kuerten, who's been fighting a bad right hip. Philippoussis, runner-up at the Open in 1998 and Wimbledon last year, quit with a hip injury in the fifth set of his match against Nikolay Davydenko.

But 2001 Open champion Hewitt stretched his winning streak to 11 matches by putting away Wayne Ferreira 6-1, 7-5, 6-4. It's a record 56th straight major tournament for Ferreira, who will retire after playing Davis Cup for South Africa this month.

"I've been doing this a long time," said Ferreira, 33, whose 57 overall majors are one shy of Jimmy Connors' career record. "It's difficult to get up and train as hard as I'd like to. It's time for me to move on and do something else."

Haynes has known for quite some time exactly what her career would be, and like the Williams sisters, she dispensed with spending time at the junior level.

"I didn't feel it could really do anything for me -- I just wanted to play pro," she said. "I already knew what I wanted to do."

She used to hang around while her father taught her older siblings LaMonica and Dante how to play tennis, getting her chance to hold a racket when she was 3.

"At first, Angie wanted to be around Daddy," Fred Haynes said. "She started by hitting 30 minutes a day. She was kind of a natural."

Eventually, she would practice about five hours a day, right where Richard Williams was grooming his future No. 1s and major champions.

"They were there when we got there," Fred Haynes said, "and when we left."

It wasn't quite fair, though, when little Angela would try to swap strokes with Serena, who's 3 years older, and Venus, another 15 months bigger.

"They were already hitting huge," Angela Haynes said. "I couldn't handle it."

She ran into Serena in a foyer at the National Tennis Center this week, the first time they'd seen each other in 15 years.

At last year's Open, Fred Haynes said in interviews that he was disappointed he hadn't received more help from Richard Williams. He stepped back from that assessment Wednesday, noting that Williams spent some time with his daughter two years ago, giving her tips to fix footwork.

"He has two of the greatest players in the world. He has many people pulling at him. I could never know what he's going through," Fred Haynes said. "Maybe my feelings were a little hurt."