Fiend at Court Unplugged
Melanie Oudin reached the quarterfinals of the US Open in 2009 when she was only 17. She defeated Maria Sharapova in Arthur Ashe Stadium along the way. If you freeze Oudin’s career at that precise moment in time there are some striking similarities to CoCo Gauff’s magical run at Wimbledon in 2019. Both captured the hearts and minds of American tennis fans. As she won the match that propelled her into the US Open Quarterfinals the announcer confidently exclaimed that it would be her “her first US Open Quarterfinal appearance.” In fact, she never made it past the second round in a grand slam singles draw ever again. Her promising start turned out to be the pinnacle of her career.
In the wake of of her magical run at the US Open, Oudin signed some significant endorsement deals. She captivated tennis fans every where with charming interviews and her custom Adidas “Believe” tennis shoes. There was massive public interest in her ensuing matches. In the tennis vernacular, she simply couldn’t “back up” that break out performance on the court. She kicked around the WTA until 2017 when she retired. At the time she was relegated to ITF level tournaments.
With CoCo mania currently gripping tennis fans and the broadcast media, Oudin is an interesting cautionary tale. It isn’t enough for the promotional engine of tennis to create just one potential star for the future. Sometimes things don’t turn out the way everybody expects.
Tennis television ratings are a reasonable measure of public interest in tennis. When that data is published, such as the US Open Finals ratings summary provided in “Painting By Numbers: US Open TV Viewership,” those numbers consistently tell the story that the public interest is higher when one of the players is Federer, Nadal, or Serena Williams. Without one of those three players, television viewership plummets. Those aging superstars of the game are going to retire sooner or later. Now is the time to plan for that inevitability.
The tennis promotional machine desperately needs to be building interest and awareness of a much broader swath of the future rising stars of the game. Simply pointing at Coco Gauff as evidence that this is being done simply won’t cut it. Melanie Oudin is not the only player who once looked like the next big thing only to slowly fade into obscurity.
It could even happen to CoCo.
- Once the next great American, Melanie Oudin is trying something new, D’Arcy Maine, ESPN.com, September 5, 2018.
