TENNIS in DEPTH.

On Monday, top-seeded Kristina Mladenovic of France defeated Ilinca Stoica of Romania 6-4, 6-3. Miami’s Gonzales Austen lost to Richard Muzaev of Russia 6-4, 6-2. Bob Van Overbeek (Boca Raton) defeated No. 14 John Morrissey (Ireland) 7-5, 6-2; Dennis Novikov (Boca Raton) defeated Bartosz Sawicki (Poland) 6-4, 2-6, 6-2. Third-seeded Heather Watson (Great Britain) defeated WC Krista Hardebeck (Santa Ana, Calif.) 6-2, 6-2; Noel Scott (Chicago) defeated No. 7 Camila Silva (Chile) 6-0, 6-4; and WC Lauren Davis (Gates Mills, Ohio) defeated No. 9 Yana Buchina (Russia) 3-6, 7-5, 6-0.

The word began to spread in the sun-baked bleachers beside Court 2 at the Crandon Park Tennis Center on Monday, and by the time 14 year old Boca Raton phenom Madison Keys had won her opening match at the Dunlop Orange Bowl International tennis championship, those in attendance had a hunch they had just seen a preview of a rising star.

Keys is 5-10 and her serve has been clocked at 114 mph, so she didn’t look at all out of place playing in the 18-under division against Zsofia Susanyi of Hungary, the world’s 11th-ranked junior. In fact, the way Keys rolled through the first set, it was hard to tell which teenager was younger.

Perhaps most impressive was Keys’ fighting spirit. After trailing 0-3 in the second set, allowing Susanyi to get back into the match, Keys clamped down and won six consecutive games to take the match 6-2, 6-3.

“If I go down like that, it usually means I’m thinking too much about the score, getting all worked up, so I just told myself to relax and stop thinking about the score, and things turned around,” Keys said.

But in tennis terms, she is special. Last April, she won her professional debut, beating No. 81 Alla Kudrayavtseva, becoming one of the youngest players to win a pro match since Mary Joe Fernandez and Jennifer Capriati in the 1980s. Because of her age, she is limited to seven pro events a year. She is hoping for a wild card at the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne in March.

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