The first major highlight of the 2008 US Open happened on Thursday on the Arthur Ashe stadium as world No.1 Ana Ivanovic was shocked by French qualifier Julie Coin. Does the WTA Tour have a problem? Definitely, but let's leave that for another time.

Keeping the French-speaking hordes at bay was always going to be a day-long occupation on a sunny Thursday that saw more huge crowds pouring into the Billie-Jean King National Tennis Center.

But, while the likes of Paul Henri Mathieu and Amelie Mauresmo were expected to play their part, no one in their wildest dreams - least of all the player herself - was prepared for the downfall of the No.1 seed Ivanovic at the hands of 25-year-old Clemson University mathematics graduate Coin.

The score was 6-3 4-6 6-3 and, when Coin was asked if she had expected to win, the answer was brief and honest: "No." It was a historic win for Coin as this was the earliest exit of a No.1 seed at the US Open.

There have been big shocks in Grand Slams involving top seeds but I can’t think of a bigger one than this. Coin had never played a Grand Slam before. In fact, she'd never even played a single match on the main Sony Ericsson WTA Tour. Her staple diet ever since leaving Clemson in 2005 have been ITF Futures events and more failed attempts in qualifying than she could remember.

But she finally nailed the qualifying business here and beat Casey Dellacqua of Australia 7-6 7-6 in the first round. Still, there was nothing to suggest that she had the game to upset Ivanovic even if the French Open champion was short of match play and struggling to regain the form of earlier in the year.

But, as the match unfolded in front of a dumfounded crowd on Arthur Ashe, it became clear that Coin was playing every bit as well as her illustrious opponent. She served better when it mattered and she made fewer unforced errors - 27 to the Serb’s 34.

And, at the end, she just managed to hold it all together despite double faulting on her first match point and getting hit with a forehand on the line that a clearly distraught Ivanovic pulled from the memory bank.

But that forehand, which has won Ivanovic so many big matches, resolutely refused to function and twice more it found the net before, on the third match point, Ana hit it long to crash out.

Coin will have to face Mauresmo in the next round, the player in whose shadow she grew up at the same tennis club near Paris. On the same day,  the former Wimbledon champion overcame a nervy start to beat the Estonian Kaia Kanepi 2-6 6-4 6-0.