It's just another challenge for Rubin.(Chicago Tribune)

NEW YORK _ Chanda Rubin first met Venus Williams at a clinic when Williams was a gangly girl of 11 or so, "all arms and legs," Rubin remembered.

Rubin, now 26, is just four years older than Williams. But she had already turned pro and, as one of few African-Americans on the women's tour, embodied the future for Venus and her younger sister, Serena.

"You could see that there was going to be some potential," Rubin said. "You also could see, in terms of Mr. Williams . . . the whole plan that he had put into place for them. At that point you couldn't really know if that was going to come true."

The daughter of a judge and a teacher from Lafayette, La., Rubin would work her way into the top 20 by the mid-1990s, ascending all the way to No. 6 before a hand injury derailed her for most of a season.

As Rubin returned from that setback, the Williams sisters grew up and their careers eclipsed hers, moving across her path like dual moons. No. 2 Venus Williams, who will play the 14th-seeded Rubin in the U.S. Open round of 16 Monday, still seems all arms and legs sometimes. It's just that the range and strength in those limbs are part of one of the most formidable packages in tennis.

But Rubin's light source has always been an inner one. She ended last season ranked 54th, then underwent her second knee surgery in 13 months to repair a meniscus tear in her left knee. Four months later, she returned.

"I've been around athletics all my life and I've never seen anybody rehab as religiously as Chanda," said her coach, Benny Sims.