The surprise of the U.S. Open, 17-year-old Melanie Oudin, who is playing her quarterfinals match against Caroline Wozniacki tonight, has signed a new endorsement deal.
The company is BackOffice Associates, a Massachusetts-based technology company.
As part of a multi-year deal, Oudin brought an apparel bag out to tonight's match with a BackOffice patch -- not allowed to be larger than four square inches -- on it.
Oudin will also make hospitality appearances for the company, which has an office in Atlanta, near where Oudin grew up, her BEST agent Sam Duvall told CNBC. The company also sponsors James Blake and golfers Jonathan Byrd and Boo Weekley.
BackOffice CEO Patricia Kennedy told CNBC that she watched Oudin's win over No. 4 seed Elena Dementieva last week and decided that Oudin would be a good female spokesperson.
As Oudin advanced, negotiations got more heated.
"She really represents to us the idea of commitment and dedication at such a young age," said Kennedy, who with her husband is the majority owner of the company in which Goldman Sachs has a 15 percent stake. "She has a long career in front of her and we want to be there to support her."
Kennedy said because the company is private it has enabled them to be more nimble than others in these times, but Kennedy also said that the value the company gets on deals like these is better than it was two or three years ago. Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed.
On CNBC.com now:
No matter what happens tonight, endorsement deals are expected to come to Oudin, who already has deals with Wilson and Adidas .
One category, which is getting a lot of interest, is the hotel category, Duvall said. This comes thanks to the publicity the Marriott got when Oudin had to change hotels yesterday.
Oudin, who started the open ranked No. 70 in the world, did not expect to be in New York this long and the hotel, according to her coach, wanted double the price. Team Oudin decided to change hotels instead.
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