STANFORD, CALIF. — Don’t look now, but there’s a youth movement afoot on the WTA Tour. They’re not necessarily the likes of the pigtailed teens who rose to prominence in the tennis-boom years of the ‘70s (Evert, Austin, etc.) or ‘80s (Graf, Seles, etc.), or even the Spice Girls who shook things up in the ‘90s (Hingis, the Williamses, etc.), but a surging group of newcomers has quietly managed to infiltrate the top 30 at a time when we were beginning to think the young ones could no longer hack it at the top of this sport.

There’s 20-year-old powerballer Madison Keys of the U. S., who burst onto the international scene earlier this year when she reached the Australian Open semis, and smooth-stroking Spaniard Garbine Muguruza, 21, who only weeks ago muscled her way to the Wimbledon final. There’s Swiss star Belinda Bencic (18), and Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard (21), who are stirring it up too.

Somehow overlooked in this Millennial/Gen Z uprising is Ukrainian baseliner Elina Svitolina (20 in both age and world ranking), who earlier this year won Marrakech (her third WTA title) and reached the quarterfinals at Roland Garros. This is a player Serena Williams says has fire in her eyes, and someone Ana Ivanovic insists we’re going to see plenty of in the coming years. Coached by Iain Hughes, Svitolina has shown that she is more than just another Euro-born clay-courter, something we saw in action on Tuesday afternoon at the Bank of the West Classic. She rallied from a 5-3 third-set deficit to defeat compatriot Kateryna Bondarenko in an all-Ukrainian first-round clash on cement, 4-6, 6-4, 7-5.

Bondarenko, 28, a former top-10 performer whom Svitolina remembers watching on TV when she was a kid, put up a good fight, converting five of nine break-point opportunities and stretching her opponent in the third set. But the veteran couldn’t hold off Svitolina, and the youngster reeled off four straight games to close out the match and move on to the second round, where she’ll face home crowd favorite Nicole Gibbs, a onetime Stanford standout.

“It’s tough to play against someone from your country, especially when we don’t have many players in the top 100,” said Svitolina, who finished with five aces in the two-and-a-half-hour contest. “But it was a good match. It’s always good to win those kinds of matches.”

If she can maintain that solid play through the remainder of the US Open Series, she might just arrive in Flushing Meadows as a dark horse pick.

“For me, the most important thing is to improve my game,” said Svitolina, “to stay solid, to play against top players and beat them.”

BOW CLASSIC NOTEBOOK

TO TURN PRO OR NOT TO TURN PRO, THAT IS THE QUESTION:

Several players weighed in on 16-year-old American phenom CiCi Bellis’ status as an amateur, sharing their opinions on whether or not the Californian, who made a big splash at the 2014 US Open with her upset of Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova, should turn pro or go the collegiate route.

Said world No. 7 Agnieszka Radwanska, “If I were her, I would play pro. It’s the best timing to start. If she plays that kind of tennis, you want to be pro. There’s always time for college. To be pro later can be just too late.” However, American Nicole Gibbs, who had a successful run at Stanford before forgoing her senior year and turning pro, said it’s really a personal decision that no one but Bellis and her family can make. “I’ve seen highlight reels from the US Open where she looked like she could be a top-20 player really quickly, but so often it doesn’t work out that way,” said Gibbs, who swept the NCAA singles and doubles titles as a sophomore in 2012. “I think it’s so personal as to what kind of years she has before she has to make that decision and what her family feels is important. I really wouldn’t advise one way or another. I had a great experience at Stanford and I want as many people to share that as possible, but if she thinks she’s ready to go pro, I would never tell her otherwise.”

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME:

Gibbs said that her return to Stanford’s Taube Family Tennis Stadium for the $731,000  Bank of the West Classic, where on Monday she downed Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia to capture her first WTA Tour-level win since April, feels like a homecoming of sorts. “I’m so comfortable on that court it’s kind of ridiculous,” said the 22-year-old, now ranked No. 126. “I’m a lot braver there than on a lot of other courts.”

BELLIS’ INNER DRIVE:

Asked where her competitiveness comes from, Bellis told reporters, “I’d like to say it’s pretty natural.” Is that inner drive limited to the tennis court, or does it extend into other areas of her life? “I’ll race you to the car,” said Bellis, who lost her opening-round matches in both singles and doubles at the Bank of the West Classic, where the Atherton, Calif. resident proved a fan favorite. “I’m extremely competitive. Anything I do, I’m really competitive at. I want to win. Even when I was little doing swim races at our club, I was trying to win every single race, whether I had to cut the kid off next to me, or do whatever to win, I was going to do it.”

‘GET OFF MY BACK, ALREADY!’:

The ever-quotable and oft-injured Andrea Petkovic spoke of her most recent health woes (food poisoning and a thigh injury), which slowed her progress earlier this year. “It was so annoying,” said the German, who’s slipped from a 2015 high of No. 10 to No. 17. “If I would compare it to something, when I got injured during the one-and-a-half, almost two years [2012-13], I felt like somebody just hit me in the head. But that’s okay, it really hurts bad when you get hit in the head, but then you’re over it. And this felt like somebody was constantly stabbing me. It didn’t really hurt, but it was annoying.  You’re like, ‘Get off my back, already!’ That’s how it felt. I didn’t get something huge, but I could never really put the work in on court, and we all know that I need that.”