Ana Ivanović

Ivanović at the Medibank International tournament in 2008

Ana Ivanović (Serbian: Ана Ивановић  listen (info • help)) born November 6, 1987, in Belgrade, Serbia, is a Serbian tennis player. As of October 10, 2011, she is ranked as the number 20 player in the world. She was the number 1 player for ten weeks from June to September 2008. She won the French Open in 2008 and came second there in 2007. She also came second at the Australian Open in 2008. She has also played tennis for Serbia in the international tournament called the Fed Cup.

Ivanović is very tall, and is famous for the way she plays. She is best known for her powerful serve. Although she is Serbian, Ivanović currently lives in Basel, Switzerland. As of October 2011, she has earned over $8 million during her tennis career. Outside tennis, she is interested in clothes and fashion, and is an ambassador for the worldwide charity for children, UNICEF.

Personal life

Ivanović was born in Belgrade in Serbia (which used to be in Yugoslavia). She watched tennis on television when she was five years old, and said, "I loved watching tennis on television, particularly Monica Seles." While she was growing up, the country was bombed by NATO, so she had to arrange her training to avoid this. She would even practice tennis in an empty swimming pool during the winter. When she was 14 years old, she was asked what she dreamed of in tennis, she replied "To become the No. 1 magic player in the world." Her Serbian tennis teacher introduced her to a Swiss businessman who agreed to hire a coach and pay for Ivanović's training in Switzerland.

Her father, Miroslav, and brother, Miros, watches some of Ana's matches on television, but her mother, Dragana, goes to all of them. Ivanović and her mother, who Ivanović describes as her "best friend," live in Basel, Switzerland. Her uncle lives in Australia where Ivanović is very popular. She is studying for a degree in finance at a Belgrade university, and is learning to speak Spanish.

In 2007 she became an ambassador for the international charitable organization UNICEF, saying "I'm also looking forward to going into the classroom and meeting many kids". Ivanović is also interested in fashion–she has modelled clothes and says "...I love to shop..."

Playing style

Ivanović's serve

Ivanović plays tennis holding her racket in her right hand. She also uses both hands on the racket when hitting her backhand shots. She can hit her shots from the baseline (the back of the tennis court) but is also good at volleys. Because she is very tall (6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)) she can serve the ball very fast. She hit a 124.9 mph (201.0 km/h) serve at the French Open in 2007, the fifth fastest serve of all time on the WTA Tour. However, her serve has become unreliable, mostly because of problems with her toss of the ball. She also has a strong wrist which means she can hide what kind of serve she is going to use until the last moment. She will often shout "Ajde!" ("Come on!" in Serbian) during her matches.

Professional career

Ivanović made it to the final of the junior version of Wimbledon in 2004, but lost to Ukrainian player Kateryna Bondarenko. She became a professional tennis player in August 2003. She finished the 2004 tennis season as one of the top 100 female players in the world. In 2005, Ivanović won her first title in the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) in Canberra, Australia, beating Hungarian player Melinda Czink. She finished 2005 in the world top 20. The year after that, she beat Martina Hingis from Switzerland at the Rogers Cup in Montreal. In the same year she won her only title in doubles competition with Maria Kirilenko in Holland. Hingis got revenge for losing in Montreal by beating Ivanović in the final of the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo, Japan, in February 2007. Ivanović won her third WTA title by beating Russian player Svetlana Kuznetsova in the German Masters tournament in Berlin in May 2007.

Ivanović at the Australian Open in 2008

She got to the final of her first Grand Slam tournament in 2007 in the French Open, but she lost to Justine Henin from Belgium. She said that losing that match was her worst moment on a tennis court. However, she did end that year as one of the ten best female players in the world. In the following season, she got to the final of the Australian Open where she lost to Maria Sharapova. After the final she was the second best female player in the world. In March 2008, Ivanović beat Svetlana Kuznetsova again in another final, this time at Indian Wells in California.

She won the French Open in 2008 by beating Russian player Dinara Safina 2–0 in the final in Paris. Her prize for winning was a trophy and €1 million. After winning that competition, it was announced that she was the best female tennis player in the world. She was the first Serbian to be the world's top player. After she won the tournament, she had a "welcome home" party in Belgrade and dinner with the President of Serbia. In June 2008, Ivanović was expected to win the Wimbledon Championships, but lost in the third round. Since then, she has failed to make it past the fourth round in any Major competition.

Ivanović has also played tennis for Serbia in an international competition called the Fed Cup. As of October 2011, she has played 20 matches and won 14 of them.

Grand Slam record

The following table shows how far Ivanović progressed in each of the Grand Slam tournaments she has played in.

Year	Australian Open	French Open	Wimbledon	US Open
2005	Round 3	Round 5 Quarter final	Round 3	Round 2
2006	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 3
2007	Round 3	Round 7 Runner-up	Round 6 Semi final	Round 4
2008	Round 7 Runner-up	Round 8 Winner	Round 3	Round 2
2009	Round 3	Round 4	Round 4	Round 1
2010	Round 2	Round 2	Round 1	Round 4
2011	Round 1	Round 1	Round 3	Round 4
2012	Round 4	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5 Quarter final

Career earnings

This table shows how much money Ivanović has been paid each year, and it also shows how much she was paid compared to all other female tennis players in the world.

Year	Majors	WTA wins	Total wins	Earnings (US$)	Money list rank
2003	0	0	0	2,630	732
2004	0	0	0	58,010	166
2005	0	1	1	472,547	29
2006	0	1	1	671,616	20
2007	0	3	3	1,960,354	4
2008	1	2	3	3,119,640	4
2009	0	0	0	914,725	16
2010	0	2	2	774,025	24
2011	0	0	0	533,975	48
Career	1	9	10	8,507,522	29

Ivanović is also sponsored by sportswear company Adidas and racket manufacturer company Yonex. She and Maria Sharapova were in a television advertisement to increase interest in women's tennis. In April 2008, her official website was visited over 40 million times, more than any other female athlete.

Related pages

• List of WTA number 1 ranked players

Other websites

• Official site (English) (Serbian)
• Ana Ivanović at Tennis.com
• Ana Ivanović at ESPN.com