US Open 2014: Mirjana Lucic

After she popped an ace past Simona Halep on match point, Mirjana Lucic-Baroni dropped her racket to the court, turned to a small group of family and friends who were sitting nearby and stretched her arms out wide with her palms up. It was an expression with a meaning understood by everyone at the Grandstand on Friday afternoon: What just happened?

Many shared the disbelief. Disbelief from Lucic-Baroni, a former teenage prodigy who, at 32, found herself advancing to the fourth round of a major for the first time since 1999. Disbelief from Halep, the world No. 2, who could do little to contend with Lucic-Baroni's forehand. And disbelief from the crowd, which stood to salute Lucic-Baroni at the very end.

'After so many years,' Lucic-Baroni said moments after her 7-6 (6), 6-2 victory in the third round of the United States Open. 'My God, this is just so incredible.'

Her story is one of pain and perseverance, a difficult childhood and premature success - success that she took for granted, she said. After an extended hiatus from the game, she returned as a fixture on various minor league circuits, her form never quite coalescing amid a tour of tennis outposts: from Fort Walton Beach, Fla., where she once earned $68 in prize money after a loss in qualifying, to Rock Hill, S.C., where she actually managed to improve her ranking to No. 261. In recent years, her career had become a sad tug of war between obscurity and irrelevance.

Which made everything that has happened here in Flushing Meadows over the past two weeks all the more intriguing and dramatic. After needing three wins in qualifying just to earn a spot in the main draw - consider that she trailed by 4-2 in the third set of her first qualifying match - Lucic-Baroni said she was savoring the experience.

'Best day of my life,' she said. 'People don't realize how much I want this and how hard I worked for this. It's these moments in these last two weeks that are just - I mean, it's what I work for. It's just so fulfilling, so amazing.'

Once upon a time, Lucic-Baroni was a young star on the rise. As a 14-year-old in 1996, she won the U.S. Open junior title. A year later, she advanced to the third round of the main draw. The apex came in 1999, when she upset Monica Seles on the way to a semifinal matchup at Wimbledon. She experienced so much success at such a young age, but it all came at a price.

In an interview with Tennis magazine that year, Lucic-Baroni described years of mental and physical abuse from her father, who was also her coach. She had left Croatia for Florida in 1998 with her mother and four siblings, but there were other challenges. After losing in qualifying at the Open in 2003, Lucic-Baroni rarely played for several years because of financial troubles.

'It's really uncomfortable for me to talk about it,' she said Friday. 'Obviously that was the main reason why I didn't play. It wasn't any lack of desire or anything. It's just circumstances were such. I still played with my brothers a lot. I was still in tennis a lot. I was still waiting for my opportunities.'

She made a halting return in 2007 and plugged away, largely by entering qualifiers at second-tier tournaments. She slowly regained enough of her familiar form to play in bigger events.

Yet there was little evidence to suggest, even in recent months, that she was capable of doing what she did against Halep on Friday. In fact, Lucic-Baroni had lost eight straight matches entering the qualifying draw at the Open. Her ranking, at No. 121, seemed almost generous. She cited a rash of injuries and the pressure of performing for her trouble.

'It's been one thing after another,' she said, adding: 'When I would get to the stage at Grand Slams, I wanted it so bad that when I would get my chance on a big court against a big player, I was kind of paralyzed. I couldn't do it. It was always like, O.K., how many more do I have? I have to do it now. I have to do it now. I finally relaxed and said, 'Just play tennis.' '

Against Halep, the plan was fairly simple: Hit the ball hard. Lucic-Baroni will never be confused with a backboard. At 5 feet 11, she whips her forehand. It was her power that saved her when Halep was serving for the first set at 5-2 - Lucic-Baroni staved off three set points - and again at 5-4, when Lucic-Baroni ripped a forehand to set up three break points. Halep then double-faulted.

Halep could not recover. Lucic-Baroni went for broke, which meant taking the good (31 winners) with the bad (36 unforced errors). But she was clearly the aggressor.

'It wasn't my best day,' said Halep, a 22-year-old Romanian who had reached the finals at the French Open and the semifinals at Wimbledon. 'Still, I did everything I could on court.'

Lucic-Baroni said she was shocked by how easily she had been able to close out the match: 'Did I just do it? Did I look at the score right?' What followed were the staples of unexpected victory: hands on top of her head, hugs from her entourage, being left speechless. 'Oh, my God,' she said.

In a corridor beneath the Grandstand, her husband, Daniele Baroni, said that his wife had gained a lot of confidence by winning three matches in qualifying. That whole process had made her tougher and more resilient, he said, and in some ways, it was a microcosm of her life.

'She lives for this,' Baroni said, 'and unfortunately, some time was taken away from her. Now she's 32, so she's trying to enjoy every single moment.'

Lucic-Baroni said she had watched some of CiCi Bellis's second-round match on Thursday night. It was faintly surreal for Lucic-Baroni, who was once in a similar position: 15 years old, with a promising career ahead of her. There was no way of knowing just how difficult it would be, or how long it would take for her to return to this sort of stage.

'You're just such a little kid,' Lucic-Baroni said. 'You don't know what's happening.'

On Friday, after the greatest victory of her career, she was aware of it all.

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