Saturday, November 7, 2009

The woes and worries of the disposed Serbian tennis stars



Ana Ivanovic is one of the players famed for her combination of glamour and good tennis. However, she has quickly faded out of the spotlight. She has not won a title this year, 2009. She has not passed the round of 16 in the past 6 slams. Her best performance was at Indian Wells, a premier mandotory event, often referred to as the 5th slam. Unfortunately, she fell in the finals to the tenacious Vera Zvonereva in straight sets.

Her woes started last year after she won French Open. Ever since her clay-court title, she has underperformed in every tournament. In 2008, she lost to Zheng Jie, China, in the 3rd round of Wimbledon. Then she lost to Julie Coin , France, in the 2nd round of US open. In 2009, she failed to defend her final appearance in Australian Open 2008 and bowed down to Alisa Kleybanova in the 3rd round. Her Roland Garros campaign was a total disaster, and her fans saw her crash out in the 4th round to rising star, Victoria Azarenka, Belarus. Ivanovic was stunned in a 36, 26 defeat. Ouch. At Wimbledon, she retired in the 4th Round against Venus Williams whilst trailing 16, 10. Then the Ivanovic slump spiralled further down. She had dismal results in the US Open series where she lost to Samantha Stosur in Los Angeles. Then she lost to Melinda Czink and Lucie Safarova in the opening rounds of Western Financial and Cincinnatihese results would. She lost in the 1st round of a slam for the first time in her career. She was beaten in a tight 3 setter at US Open. She blew a matchpoint when she hit wild cross-court forehand. Her tennis woes contined at the Pan Pacific Open where she lost to Lucie Safarova for the second time in the year. She has not played in any other tournaments ever since and pulled out of Beijing as she had developed an upper-respitory tract infection. Her win-loss record this year stands at 24-14 and she ended her year at number 22. After her US open, Pat Cash, a former champion of Wimbledon claimed that Ana Ivanovic’s serve was painful to watch. He also said Ivanovic suffered from a lack of confidence and was over-analysing her game.
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ESPN analyst Pam Shriver agreed with Ivanovic's tough self-assessment, saying the building blocks of her game have toppled like dominoes. "Whatever aura she had ran out, and people realized she was vulnerable,'' Shriver said "While Safina had her meltdowns in the late stages of Slams, Ivanovic was having hers in the early rounds.''After the series of losses, Ana made a public statement on her website and to journalists that she was glad to be ranked so high despite a year of unremarkable tennis. She quotes: I guess having to withdraw from Beijing is an appropriate ending to a very disappointing season"





Meanwhile Jelena Jankovic, another fallen Serbian star claims to be empathetic towards Ana’s slumping form as she to has suffered from the death of her granmother, illness of mother and an ill-advised training program where she lost alot of weight an over-trained. Jelena Jankovic started the year ranked number 1. However, was disposed by Marion Bartoli in the 4th round at Australian Open in straight sets resulting in her loss of the number 1 ranking. She was defeated in the 4th Round by youngster Sorana Cirstea after failing to serve for the match. At Wimbledon, she lost in 3 sets to Melanie Oudin and at US Open, she bombed out in the US Open, losing to Yaroslava Shredova in 3 tight sets. Many tennis commentators comment that she has a severe loss of confidence throughout her matches. Despite an awful year of tennis, she has claimed a title against Dinara Safina at Cincinnati. She also reached the final of Tokyo, where she retired due to wrist injury against Maria Sharapova. At the end of the year, Jelena quotes, ''To come out of this as a champion, it's I think a good achievement, no matter what your ranking is,'' she said. ''But to overcome those obstacles and to become a better player, I think it makes you much stronger as a person and as a player as well. ''So if you can do that, I think it can be a plus, it can be a positive thing.''
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Both of the Serbian rivals have found it hard to establish themselves this year, 2009. Hopefully, both will have a more fruiful year in 2010. Both players will also be representeing Serbia in Fed Cup as they have qualified for the World Group in 2010.

1 comment:

  1. Djokovic is a serbian tennis star and he's going fantastic! It's the serbian female tennis players who are crap.... BTW, Ivanovic is NOT pretty....

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