OPEN NOTES
Angela Haynes, a young, unranked, unheralded black qualifier from Compton, says she’s pretty much been left out of the loop by the USTA. But the way she played last night, the tennis world may well learn exactly who she is.
Whatever nerves she might have felt, she overcame them to upset No. 22 seed Magdalena Maleeva 6-2, 6-3.
“Every bit of nerves, it all came. I was just trying to hang in there,” Haynes said. “It’s the biggest win.”
Haynes, who turns 20 this month, started playing tennis with her father Fred at age 3, and he still coaches her. Her older sister used to hit with the Williams sisters back in Compton, and that family has helped provide her tennis guidance.
“I was too young to hit with Venus and Serena; they were already hitting huge, I couldn’t handle it,” Haynes said. “We did kind of grow up together; then they moved to Florida.”
They came from the same tough Compton neighborhood, although Haynes shrugged off the area’s reputation, saying “It’s tough there; but it does make you tough. You never forget where you come from.”
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The Cal Ripken Jr. of Tennis, Wayne Ferreira, 32, retired yesterday after playing a record 56 straight Grand Slam events. Following his loss to Lleyton Hewitt, he said, “When I leave here, I’ve played pretty much everybody.
“I’ve beaten everybody except [Andre] Agassi and [Michael] Chang. I played [Bjorn] Borg, I played [Jimmy] Connors, I played [Ivan] Lendl, [Stefan] Edberg, [Boris] Becker. . . . I can say that I’ve played two generations of tennis players.”

