Compton Enjoys a Big Day at the Open

NEW YORK — Two Compton women made noise Wednesday at the U.S. Open.

On the grand stage at Arthur Ashe Stadium Court, Serena Williams played tennis in micro mini shorts and had to send a runner to the locker room to fetch her purse.

Why? Williams had forgotten her earrings in her purse. “I really believe in accessorizing,” said Williams, who has talked far more about clothes than tennis this week and who conquered Lindsay Lee-Waters in a second-round match, 6-4, 6-3.

Later, on the Grandstand Court, where the fans can reach out and touch the players and the afternoon shadows move as fast as the tennis balls, Angela Haynes brought a noisy gathering to its feet.

Haynes, 19, upset 22nd-seeded Magdalena Maleeva 6-2, 6-3, but it wasn’t a monumental upset. Maleeva, 29, has never won a major title.

Alicia Molik, seeded 17th, was the highest seeded women’s player to lose, knocked out by Daniela Hantuchova, 6-4, 6-3. And it might have been more surprising that second-seeded Amelie Mauresmo lost a set to unheralded Julia Vakulenko before winning, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2.

More of a shiver went through the grounds when top-seeded Roger Federer dropped a set to qualifier Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus before Federer, the winner of this year’s Australian Open and Wimbledon, moved into the third round with a 6-2, 6-7 (4-7), 6-3, 6-1 victory. And by the numbers, the loss by 14th-seeded Fernando Gonzalez of Chile, the Olympic singles bronze medalist, to Robin Soderling of Sweden, 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), 6-7 (4-7), 6-1, qualified as the biggest upset of the day.

But Haynes screamed the loudest after her win. She considered it her biggest victory. She acknowledged that she was “scared” during the first three match points she tried to convert. It took Haynes until her fourth to earn the victory, her second at a Grand Slam tournament. Haynes’ first had come Monday in three long sets over Tatiana Perebiynis.

Besides being from Compton, Williams and Haynes have something else in common.

They both have forceful fathers who have been their coach and their mentor. Richard Williams has told his story often, about seeing tennis players on TV receive gigantic winners’ checks and deciding to make his daughters Venus and Serena into champions.

So he did, never quietly, and Richard’s words combined with his daughter’s talents brought attention and sponsorship dollars to the family even before Venus and Serena began winning tournaments.

Fred Haynes gave Angela a tennis racket when she was 3. Fred brought Angela to the courts in Compton while her older brother Dante and her older sister Monica hit with Venus and Serena.

Haynes, 19, has not won a major tennis tournament or made millions of dollars. Nike does not design eye-popping clothes for her. When she walked past Serena in the locker room here last week, Serena turned to Chanda Rubin and said, “Who’s that girl?”

That girl, Haynes, is ranked No. 185 in the world and needed a wild card to get into the main draw. Fred Haynes said he was “grateful and pleased” that the U.S. Tennis Assn. saw fit to issue Haynes the free pass. “It’s a hard road to make it through the qualifying,” Fred Haynes said, “but we would have done it.”

While his daughter showered, Fred spoke of having spent nights in his car and collecting cans to recycle for spare change so that he would never have regrets.

“I didn’t want to be in my rocking chair some day wondering if we did enough to give Angela the chance,” Fred said.

A year ago Angela made her Open debut and lost in straight sets to Tina Pisnik. Afterward Fred Haynes was quoted in a New York newspaper as saying Richard Williams had offered his daughter “zero” help and that “Venus and Serena were like my kids, and my kids were like Richard’s son and daughter. If you’re in the hole and you get out of the hole, you stick a pole back in the hole. It just didn’t happen,” Haynes said in the story.

Angela said Wednesday that Richard had helped her this year with tips on footwork. Fred said he might have spoken out of frustration last year, in a moment of disappointment after his daughter had suffered a tough loss.

“Everything that comes to Richard Williams, he deserves it,” Fred Haynes said. “Sometimes we have dreams and if they don’t happen fast enough, we get frustrated.”

Venus and Serena Williams have won nine Grand Slam titles between them. They have dabbled in fashion design and acting. They are in fashion and gossip magazines as much as in sports pages. They are bold-face type. Haynes is still agate, the small print. For now.

“A win like this, wow, I’m in the third round of the U.S. Open,” Haynes said. “Where can I go now? Up and up. I’m starting to believe in myself. It just takes time.”