Stars
Ivanovic taking baby steps back to game's pinnacle
(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-05-25 10:30
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 Ana Ivanovic of Serbia returns the ball to Chang Kai-chen of Taiwan during the French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros in Paris May 24, 2010. [Photo/Agencies] |
PARIS - Two years after winning the French Open and then seeing her ranking take a frightening plummet, Ana Ivanovic is just having fun in Paris - for now.
The Serb's fall from the top has been alarming.
She lifted her only slam here in 2008 and soon after grabbed the number one ranking before a collapse in form, confidence and a series of niggling injuries saw her slump to 58th in the WTA standings earlier this year before recovering to her current 42nd.
She reached the semi-finals in Rome this month and made a fine start to her Roland Garros campaign by defeating Taiwan's Chang Kai-chen 6-3 6-3 on Monday.
"I love playing on clay. I grew up on this surface. It's always fun coming back here, and then the crowd, it's amazing. They always give me so much support," she told reporters.
"It's a lot of fun and a lot of emotions playing here, so I just try to actually take it one step at a time. But I do have high expectations for myself."
The 22-year-old has been training with Heinz Gunthardt, Steffi Graf's former coach, since March and Ivanovic believes the arrangement is paying off.
"I think I'm a completely different player than I was a couple of years ago," she said.
"And also, there are more aspects in my game that I actually added. Some days it's a little bit harder for it to fall all together into place.
"And other days it's much, much easier. The improvements are immense."
Ivanovic explained that she is now more consistent on the court, having rubbed out a few imperfections.
"Since I started working with Heinz, every day I could see improvement," she said. "We worked a lot on my serve and just also on my groundstrokes to be more free and actually swing through the ball better.
"It's just making me feel more comfortable in the court, and I do. I feel also I'm becoming more and more consistent, which was the thing that I always tried to do."
Next in line for the resurgent Ivanovic is Russian Alisa Kleybanova, the 28th seed.
