Ana Ivanović

Ana Ivanović( A serbian Tennis beauty)

A former World No.1 Serbiantennis player. As of October 12, 2009, she is ranked World No. 13 by the Women's Tennis Association. She won the 2008 French Openand was the runner-up in singles at the 2007 French Open^[2] and the 2008 Australian Open.

vanovic is an offensive baseliner who is notable for her aggressive play. Ivanović's strength is her powerful forehand which has long been considered to be one of the best forehands in the game. Her backhand, although not as big of a weapon as her forehand, has improved over the years. Ivanović's serve is a powerful weapon, but can sometimes be unreliable due to an occasional wayward ball toss. Ivanović's movement and net play were once considered to be her weaknesses, however both her movement and net play has improved tremendously over the years. Ivanović's best surface are clay courts where her height allows her to strike clean winners off of high bouncing balls, but she is capable of performing well on hard and grass courts as well. Her main weakness is considered to be her lack of confidence.

Ivanović picked up a racket at the age of five after watching Monica Seles, a fellow Yugoslavian, on television during the 1992 French Open. She started her career after memorizing the number of a local tennis clinic from an advertisement . During her training she encountered the NATO bombings in 1999, forcing her to train in the morning to avoid them. Later, she admitted that she trained in an abandoned swimming pool in the winter, as there were no other facilities. When she was 15, Ivanović spent four hours in the locker room crying after a defeat—the first that her new manager had watched—she thought that Dan Holzmann was going to drop her because she felt that she was not good enough to become a professional tennis player. He has stayed as her manager to this day.

Ivanović reached the final of the Junior Wimbledon tournament in 2004, losing to Kateryna Bondarenko. In 2004, she went 26–0 on the ITF circuit, and won all five events that she entered, two of them as a qualifier. Her first professional breakthrough occurred in October 2004 when she took Venus Williams to two tie breaks before losing 7–6(11), 7–6(6) in the second round of the Zürich Open in Zürich, Switzerland, in which she held several set points in both sets. She followed that up with a quarterfinal showing in Luxembourg the next week.

t Wimbledon, Ivanović was seeded 13th. She opened the tournament against Lucie Hradecká and had to save two match before eventually winning 5–7, 6–2, 8–6. This became the third year in a row where Ivanović had to save match points at Wimbledon. She followed up this match with wins over Sara Erraniand 18th seeded Samantha Stosur, only her second win over a top 15 opponent this season. She retired from her fourth round match with Venus Williams while trailing 6–1, 0–1, due to a micro-tear in her thigh.

In preparation for the U.S. Open, Ivanović took part in three tournaments. In the LA Women's Tennis Championships in Los Angeles, Ivanović reached the third round, where she fell to Samantha Stosur, 6–3, 6–2. Her next tournament was the Western & Southern Financial Group Women's Open in Cincinnatiwhere she was upset in the second round by Melinda Czink, 7–6(6), 7–5, despite serving for the first set at 5–4 and holding a 3–0 advantage in the second. Ivanović then lost to Lucie Safarova 3–6, 7–5, 6–3, at the Rogers Cup in Toronto despite serving for the match in the second set at 5–4.

At the U.S. Open, Ivanović lost in the first round of a Grand Slam for the first time in her career, losing toKateryna Bondarenko, 2–6, 6–3, 7–6(7), despite holding a 3–1 lead in the second set and having match point on her serve in the third set tiebreak. After the match, former Wimbledon champion Pat Cashcriticized Ivanovic's new service motion, calling watching it a "painful experience" and that it "weakens her threat". He also felt that Ivanovic was "over-analysing" her game and that her main problem is "her lack of confidence".^[23]

At the Premier 5 Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo, Ivanović suffered her third successive defeat losing in the first round to Lucie Safarova, 6–4, 7–6(1), having held a 3–0 lead in the second set. This was only the second time in her career that Ivanovic had suffered three back-to-back defeats.

Ivanović's win-loss record for the year stands at 24–14, her worst since she turned pro. She has also failed to defeat a top 10 player since October the previous year, with her win-loss record against top 20 players at 2–7. Ivanović has only reached three quarter-finals (Brisbane, Dubai, Indian Wells), one semi-final and final (Indian Wells) and has only won back-to-back matches six times (Brisbane, Australian Open, Dubai, Indian Wells, French Open, Wimbledon), only two coming in non grand slam events.

Citing an upper respiratory tract infection, Ivanovic pulled out of the China Open, and announced via her official website that she was taking the rest of the year off. She finished the year with a 24-14 match record and no titles.