"...my daughter is being warmed up by an old lady in flip-flops"

Right before CoCo Vandeweghe played in her first-ever main draw event, the Sony Ericsson Open, she warmed up with Lindsay Davenport. Davenport, impressed with Vandewegh, asked who her coach was, and the junior player replied that she did not have one. She didn't even have a hitting partner, other than her mother, who took to the courts in sandals.

"I had blisters on my feet for a week," Tauna Vandeweghe said. "That was the first wake-up call for us. I said to myself: 'This is ridiculous. These other girls have coaches, nutritionists, everything, and my daughter is being warmed up by an old lady in flip-flops."

Tauna Vandeweghe is hardly an "old lady," but her point was well made. Her daughter now has not one, but two, coaches--both of them former (and current) coaches of Davenport. Robert Van't Hof and Adam Peterson now coach the young player, and she shares an agent with Maria Sharapova. Vandeweghe's parents were careful not to push her into too much too soon, but the family feels that now is the right time for her to enter a more intense level of sport.

Vandeweghe was pleasant to watch in the U.S. Open main draw (as was her Snezana-like mother), though she had the misfortune of drawing Jelena Jankovic in the first round), though she did not impress me as much as Kristie Ahn. When she lost in the main draw, she went back over to juniors and won the U.S. Open title.

CoCo Vandeweghe is only sixteen years old, and she is worth watching.