American teen Melanie Oudin went global at Wimbledon on Saturday, causing distant kin in Anniston to think local.

The 17-year-old qualifier's upset of the No. 6 seed Jelena Jankovic jogged memories of Oudin's great-grandfather, "Daddy Rex" Godwin, one of the local tennis community's top promoters of his time.

Anne Kitchin thought of the young girl she met at family gatherings.

"Just very pleasant and cute as a button," Kitchin said.

Oudin's family connections to the Anniston tennis community strings like the racket she wielded with prodigious poise Saturday.

Godwin's daughter Jean married Cooperstown, N.Y., native Charles Folger Oudin Jr. Their son John is Melanie's dad.

Kitchin is related through marriage. Her brother-in-law is Oudin's great-uncle.

Kitchin said she is Oudin's last surviving kin in Anniston. She and others connected to Godwin and his time as a youth tennis instructor at Anniston Country Club have followed the younger Oudin through her Wimbledon run.

The Marietta, Ga., native won three qualifying matches just to reach the main draw. Her 6-7 (8), 7-5, 6-2 victory over Jankovic in Saturday's third round propelled her to the round of 16.

Oudin will face 11th-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska on Monday and could play Venus Williams next.

Oudin entered Wimbledon ranked No. 124 in the world and will likely jump into the top 100.

Her upset Saturday was hailed as the biggest of the tournament and a badly needed rally winner for the U.S. contingent. She joins the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, in the round of 16.

Oudin said after Saturday's match that she grew up watching the Williams sisters. Her relatives and interested parties in Anniston know the feeling.

ESPN2 broke away from Oudin's match to pick up coverage of Venus Williams' victory over Carla Suarez Navarro, which played out simultaneously on a different court. When an upset became apparent, the all-sports network's spin-off returned to Oudin's match.

Kitchin and her tennis-enthusiast children were in contact by phone during the match and didn't much like the network switch.

"We knew Venus was going to win; she was so far ahead," Kitchin said. "We kept saying, 'We don't care about Venus. Move it back over to the other one.'

"We got to see the absolute end of it, and then it was probably another hour before the interview."

Oudin told press and media about how her grandmother (believed to be on her mother's side) got her and her twin sister interested in tennis. She said she viewed Jankovic, once the world's top-ranked player, as "any other player."

"She was a good interviewee," Kitchin said. "To be 17 years old, she really did handle herself well, I thought."

Kitchin said "my heart was in my throat" while watching the match. Oudin fought through an epic first set rallied from a 5-4 hole in the second to force a third set.

Others who watched the match admired how well Oudin handled Jankovic's 12-minute break between the first and second sets for an apparent heat-related issue.

"For a player of her age, she's certainly developed a lot of maturity," said Anniston's John P. Wheeler, a family friend and tennis enthusiast. "… That usually kind of would disturb a younger player that's not used to that kind of interruption in the flow of things.

"But she came back, and it didn't seem to affect her."

Wheeler described Oudin as "a very consistent player, one that moves very well on the court, and it's just a delight to kind of feel like you knew some of the people who came before her in the family.

"The whole family has had a keen interest in tennis four a couple of generations."

Godwin was most influential locally. He won city championships, promoted and taught the game in the 1920s and '30s.

Those who remember him talk about his white hair, long white pants and elbow-in stroke.

Wheeler saw it up close and parlayed what he learned into a chance to play tennis for Amherst (Mass.) College. He remembers the lobs Godwin kept sending over the net.

"Even though he didn't move particularly well at that age, he could usually beat us because he just kept the ball back in play," Wheeler said. "As youngsters, we'd hit the ball as hard as we could, and we'd hit it out."

Such memories will surely come up when Mentone's Hank Willett holds a family gathering in late July. His late father was a first cousin to Oudin's father.

This tennis family's members are bound to volley tales of Anniston native Frank "Buckshot" Willett, a boys' indoor national champion in the 1930s and a member of the Southern Tennis Hall of Fame.

Buckshot Willett is one of Oudin's great-uncles.

Hank Willett, considered a family historian, said Saturday that his tennis-fan brother in California has called to see whether Oudin will attend the gathering. It depends on her schedule.

"I hope she comes," Kitchin said. "I'll give her a hug."