Ana Ivanovic

Ana Ivanovic is the darling of the tennis fans at present. She currently enjoys holding on the world number one ranking of the WTA tour. She first caught the eyes of tennis fans in 2004 when she reached the Junior Wimbledon tournament finals.

Ana Ivanovic is born in November 6, 1987 in Belgrade, Serbia. Her mother Dragana is a lawyer and has never missed her daughter’s matches. Her father Miroslav is a self-employed businessman. Ana has a younger brother Milos, with whom he plays basketball with. Her other hobbies include watching movies, solving Sudoku puzzles and shopping. When she’s not busy with her tennis career, she attends college in Belgrade, taking up finance. Growing up she idolizes Monica Seles. Her other tennis idol is Roger Federer.

Ana Ivanovic loves playing the baseline. She relies on her depth, power and the placement of her forehand shots to win matches. She has also improved on her net game and her drop shots find their spots. She is adept in playing at any surface.

She had a busy 2007. Her first tournament was the Mondial Hardcourts in Australia where she reached the quarterfinals. Then she joined the Sydney Medibank International and lost again in the quarterfinals. She was the 13th seed at the Australian Open but she was stopped at the third round. After her defeat, she fired David Taylor as her coach. She lost at the finals of the Tier 1 Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo to Martina Hingis. That is only her third career finals appearance. She broke her losing streak with a win in the Qatar Telecom German Open, which is her first clay court title. That win also catapulted her to world number 8, her first time to be in the top ten in the WTA rankings. She then went to the French Open where she beat world number 3 Kuznetsova in the quarterfinals and world number 2 Maria Sharapova in the semifinals. She faced world number 1 Justine Henin in the finals where she lost.

She played in the Ordina Open and lost to Daniela Hantuchova in the quarterfinals. She joined the Wimbledon only to lose to Venus Williams in the semifinals. She injured her knee in Wimbledon, forcing her to miss the Serbian Fred Cup and two more tournaments leading to the U.S. Open. She came back at the East West Bank Classic and won it against Petrova to grab her fourth career singles title. This win gave her the world number 4 ranking. Her next tournament was the Roger Cup in Toronto, Canada where she was ousted by Yan Zi. She was defeated in the U.S. Open by Venus Williams. She won the Luxembourg Championship by beating Hantuchova for her fifth career title. She ended the year by playing in the WTA Tour Championships. She lost in the semifinals to the world number 1 Henin. She finished the year with the ranking of world number 4.

Ana Ivanovic started the 2008 in an exhibition tournament in Hong Kong in which she lost in the quarterfinals to Dementieva. She went to the Australian Open finals where she was defeated by Maria Sharapova. Even with the lost, her ranking catapulted into world number 2. She won her first Grand Slam in the French Open and at the same time became World Number 1. She entered Wimbledon as the top seed only to lose in the third round to an unseeded Zheng Jie.