Melanie Oudin, the Georgia teenager making a Cinderella run at the U.S. Open tennis championships, didn’t expect to stay in New York so long.
Oudin, 17, changed hotels earlier this week after her reservation at the New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square ran out. The 70th-ranked female had to delay her departure after she beat, among others, No. 4-seed Elena Dementieva and No. 29-seed Maria Sharapova — who previously has been ranked No. 1 worldwide — to reach the U.S. Open quarterfinals. “We booked the Marriott for 12 days and when the reservation was up, we were told it was fully booked, so we simply moved next door to the InterContinental,” Oudin’s coach, Brian de Villiers, told CNN. “It was really not a big deal.” Watch how coach says Oudin is mentally tough He added, “Nobody begged the hotel to let us stay.” The Marriott, meanwhile, said it wasn’t even aware Oudin was staying there, as the room was not reserved in her name.
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“Usually, when we have VIPs or sports athletes staying with us — and we have a lot of sports players that do stay here — if she reached out to us, of course we could have tried to work with her,” said Kathleen Duffy, spokeswoman for Marriott in New York. “We would have talked to her manager and see if we could be flexible.” She said Oudin was not asked to leave and “we would love to welcome her back.”
Duffy did say, however, that it is standard procedure for the hotel to raise room rates for guests wishing to extend their stays when rooms are sold out. Oudin, of Marietta, Georgia, is the youngest American to advance to the quarterfinals since Serena Williams in 1999. She will face No. 9-seed Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark at 7 p.m. Wednesday for a spot in the semifinals.
