The sounds were loud and incessant. They were also very confusing to Stacey Schuman.

Eight years ago, the Atherton, Calif. woman would be sitting in her house at night and suddenly her ears would be pricked by noises coming from the driveway.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

What was going on out there? An animal scavenging around the yard? Neighbourhood kids making a racket with metal and heaven knows what else? She’d open her front door to investigate, and here’s what she saw.

A little 8-year-old blonde girl with brown eyes, swinging a tennis racket and pounding shots against the family’s garage door.

In her pajamas, but not in the bedroom Aspen Schuman was supposed to be in. The one Stacey had just left her daughter in.

“She’d say ‘what are you doing out here? I just put you to bed like 10 minutes ago!’” Schuman, who is now contesting the US Open Junior Championships, recalled. “But I just really wanted to keep playing and practicing.”

All that damage to the Schuman family garage doors is paying off now, as the 16-year-old is making some considerable noise at Flushing Meadows.

Schuman, a wild card who was alerted she’d be in the US Open girls' draw just a week before it started, has opened eyes with her consistent groundstrokes and mental toughness. On Tuesday, she defeated Mingge Xu of Great Britain 6-3 2-6 6-3.

A major point of the match happened in the third set, when at 4-3 Schuman and Xu had a titanic game that lasted 20 points and contained seven deuces. Finally, the American was able to break when a Xu forehand sailed wide, and shortly afterwards Schuman finished off the match.

“It is frustrating with all the break points I had, but when your opponent hits great shots, you have to accept it,” Schuman said. “I just tried to hang in there because I know she was being aggressive and going for her shots.”

Schuman’s strong play in New York continues a very impressive recent stretch for the Californian, who is making her Junior Grand Slam debut.

She reached the J300 College Park final in the build up to the US Open, beating highly-ranked Mayu Crossley of Japan and fellow American Tatum Evans in the process. She came through qualifying there and had to play nine matches in eight days.

“I’m glad I don’t have to do that here,” she said with a chuckle.

Schuman, who trains at Players Capital in Atherton with coaches John Hubbell and Michael Jessup, also won a pair of J100 events this summer, and credits her love of tennis to the joy she had when first starting.

“I begged my Mom if I could take one of my older sister’s tennis lessons, and I went and the coach had a boombox on the court and music and it was so much fun,” Schuman said.

She said she tries to set her expectations high when going into a tournament.

“I like the quote from Iga Swiatek that I’ve heard: high standards, low expectations,” Schuman said. “Over time, I think the hard work you put in adds up, and I’ve been pretty patient and stayed consistent.”

And about that unusual first name? There is a story behind it. Firstly, Schuman explains that her mom Stacey was a competitive skier when she was younger, and trained a lot in Aspen, Colorado, a famous and popular American venue.

But there’s more.

“And then also my older sisters favorite TV show was Baby Einstein and the creator of the show (Julie Clark) had a daughter who had blonde hair and brown eyes, and she’d come on the screen at the end of the show, and her name was Aspen,” Schuman explained. “And my mom loved that name and loved skiing. I love my name.”

That’s a name tennis fans will get to know, and remember, very soon if she keeps playing this well.

In other girls' singles action, the biggest upset came from American wild card Katherine Hui. Afreshman at Stanford University who lost in first round of women’s qualifying here, Hui took down No.2 seed Lucciana Perez Alarcon 6-4 6-0.

“I’ve watched her play on some past videos and knew that my style would be pretty good against her on hardcourts,” Hui said. “I thought taking balls early would make her uncomfortable.”

Click here for a full list of results from the 2023 US Open Junior Championships