PARIS -- She celebrated her 18th birthday earlier this month, but Ashley Harkleroad had been building toward this moment for most of a lifetime.

	Ashley Harkleroad advanced to her first third round in a major.

Only a year ago, the native of Roseville, Ga., was a finalist in the junior championships here at Roland Garros. And then there was an unconscious week in April when she took out three players ranked among the top 20 in Charleston. Then she reached the semifinals of a modest tournament last week in nearby Strasbourg, France.

And now, she was leading Daniela Hantuchova 5-1 in the third set of their second-round match on atmospheric Court 1. Harkleroad had already beaten the No. 9 seed in South Carolina, but this was a Grand Slam event. She had only won her first major match on Monday, beating Japan's Saori Obata in straight sets.

Almost predictably, the scenario darkened. Harkleroad tightened visibly, her balls started getting shorter, and Hantuchova's fragile game found an equilibrium. Harkleroad dropped five straight games to fall behind 6-5. It disappeared so swiftly, it was almost difficult to comprehend. During the subsequent changeover, she looked like an emotional teenager, crying, almost hyperventilating.

"I think it was just the moment," Harkleroad said later. "I was just like, I don't know, tight and so wanting it so bad. I guess that's just the fighting spirit. I guess that just comes with it.

"I just said, 'OK, Ashley, you're not going to lose this. You're going to fight.' I just tried to breathe and relax, relax."

Indeed, Harkleroad gathered herself and won the 12th game to level the match. And when she prevailed 7-6 (2), 4-6, 9-7 on Wednesday, it was just as she imagined it so many times. Hantuchova was the highest seed to go out so far on the women's side. It was the biggest victory in a career that is rapidly gaining momentum. The match, which featured dozens of mistakes and frustrating missed opportunities, required three hours and eight minutes -- the longest women's match here so far.

She has yet to graduate from high school -- her mother, a school teacher, helps homeschool her when time allows -- but the Education of Ashley Harkleroad continues.

While the early 20-somethings Williams sisters and Belgians Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin-Hardenne dominate the top spots in tennis these days, for years the now the middle-aged Americans (by tennis standards) dominated the top 10. But they might have their best matches behind them. Lindsay Davenport, Jennifer Capriati and Chanda Rubin, the No. 6-8 seeds, respectively, are all 27 or will turn next month. Monica Seles is 29.

The rest of the future of American tennis lies in the hands of Laura Granville, Meghann Shaughnessy and Alexandra Stevenson.

Granville, who just turned 22, reached the fourth round at Wimbledon last year. Shaughnessy, 24, made the fourth round at Roland Garros and Wimbledon in 2001. Stevenson blasted into the semifinals of Wimbledon in 1999 -- as an 18-year-old -- but she has failed to win more than one Grand Slam match in the subsequent 15 events.

Now, it appears, it is time to add Harkleroad to that list of potentials. If she can get past Magui Serna and advance to the fourth round at her tender age, she might actually be ahead of their collective curve.

She has been on the radar for several years, but said she has been held back by the WTA Tour rules that limit the number of tournaments for players under 18. She was ranked No. 115 at the end of last year because she could only compete in 13 regular events. When she torched Shaughnessy, Elena Bovina and Hantuchova in Charleston -- losing to Henin-Hardenne in the semifinals -- her ranking jumped a neat 50 spots, from No. 101 to No. 57. Three victories in Strasbourg brought her to No. 52. A few more victories in Paris and Harkleroad could be inside the top 30.

"That was like a birthday present for me on my 18th, just to be able to play tournament after tournament after tournament," Harkleroad said. "Because I can get a groove going."

When Hantuchova and Harkleroad walked out onto the court, the observant spectators were amused to see that they wore matching Nike powder-blue two-piece outfits, shoes and socks. Their games were not nearly as artful.

Harkleroad fell behind 1-4, but eventually forced a tiebreaker. She won the last four points of the breaker, the last a Hantuchova double fault.

Hantuchova, who turned 20 last month, won the second set and rallied to take a 6-5 lead in the third. Serving for the match, Hantuchova started rushing and when her forehand winner sailed long it was 6-all. With no tiebreakers here in the ultimate set -- the winner must put two games together -- it threatened to be a battle of conditioning. The painfully thin Hantuchova seemed to be hanging in there, as did Harkleroad.

Both women held serve to push the score to 7-all. Harkleroad caught a break in her service game when a net cord bought her a little time; she blasted a cross-court winning volley past a surprised Hantuchova. She went on to hold, and pushed Hantuchova all the way to deuce at 8-7. A big, swinging forehand volley down the line gave her match point and Hantuchova gave her the match when her too-hard forehand sailed long.

It has been an interesting year for Hantuchova, who at the Australia Open reached her third consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinal. Since then, however, she has struggled, never advancing past a semifinal.

"There is much more pressure than there was for me last year because I was coming up," Hantuchova said. "I had almost no pressure at all. But now everyone is expecting me to win, and it's really tough. Everyone wants to beat me."

Right now, Harkleroad is operating in that pressure-free zone. Soon, when her opponents come to expect a struggle, she will begin to feel it.

For now, the attractive young woman with a blonde ponytail, fields as many questions about the comparisons to Anna Kournikova (her looks, not her game), as about her tennis.

"She's very, very pretty," Harkleroad said. "No (comparisons) never bothered me. That was just a compliment for me because I practiced with her a lot in Miami. She's a very sweet girl.

"But I always tried to stay focused on just my tennis. Everything else will fall in place if I do that."

Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com.