The 21st century
Serbia · born Belgrade, 1987 · right-handed · Birmingham champion 2014 and former world No. 1
All playersBack to the rankings
1
Grass-court title, Birmingham 2014, of 15 WTA singles titles
21
Games lost in five matches at Birmingham in 2014
SF
Best Wimbledon result, 2007, at 19
2004
Wimbledon girls' singles finalist
No. 1
World ranking after winning the 2008 French Open
Ana Ivanovic was born in Belgrade in 1987 and took up tennis at five after watching Monica Seles on television. She learned the game on courts laid inside an emptied swimming pool and trained through the NATO bombing of Belgrade in 1999, then moved to Switzerland with the backing of a Swiss sponsor. In 2005, aged 17, she reached the French Open quarter-finals and finished the year at No. 16.
She reached the French Open final in 2007 and the Australian Open final in 2008, then won Roland Garros in 2008, beating Dinara Safina 6-4, 6-3, and became world No. 1 for 12 weeks. A long slump followed, much of it traced to an unreliable service toss, before a revival in 2014, when she won a career-best four titles, Birmingham among them, and finished No. 5. She won 15 WTA singles titles and retired at the end of 2016, aged 29, after wrist and other injuries. In 2007 she became a UNICEF ambassador for Serbia.
| Birmingham 2014 | Top seed; did not drop a set and lost only 21 games all week, beating Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová 6-3, 6-2 in the final for her first grass title |
|---|---|
| Wimbledon 2007 | Beat Nadia Petrova in the fourth round and saved three match points against Nicole Vaidišová in the quarter-finals; lost to Venus Williams in straight sets in the semi-finals |
| Wimbledon girls' 2004 | Lost the final to Kateryna Bondarenko 6-4, 6-7, 6-2 |
| Other grass | Birmingham semi-finalist in 2011, losing to Daniela Hantuchová. At Wimbledon 2014, as 11th seed, she lost in the third round to Sabine Lisicki, then beat her a few weeks later at Stanford |
| Birmingham | ||
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Women's singles | |
Leading grass titles only: the grass majors, tour-level grass events since 1968 and the leading grass championships before 1968. †single source; ‡ sources disagree. Roll of champions
"I couldn't ask for better preparation than to win my first title on grass."
The person behind the player.
Belgrade, 1990s
"I grew up playing in a swimming pool," she said in 2007. The club could not afford to heat its Olympic pool in winter, so it was emptied, carpeted and fitted with two courts. "It was impossible to play crosscourt because the wall was too close so we had to keep playing down the lines."
Source: Tennis.com, quoting ReutersBelgrade, 1999
She kept training during the NATO bombing of Belgrade. "You realized that they are not bombing just everything, only certain buildings," she said. "So after a month, I started practicing."
Source: Tennis.com, quoting ReutersBelgrade, childhood
Inspired by Monica Seles on television, she got her start by memorising the telephone number of a local tennis clinic from an advertisement. In the swimming-pool hall she played her compatriot Jelena Janković as a seven-year-old and lost 7-1.
Source: WikipediaBirmingham, June 2014
Ranked 13th and top seed at Edgbaston, she was broken in the first game of the final against Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová, broke straight back and won 6-3, 6-2. It was her third title of 2014 and the 14th of her career.
Source: BBC Sport2007 onwards
In 2007 she became a United Nations children's ambassador for Serbia. When she retired at the end of 2016, worn down by a recurring wrist problem and a broken toe, she said she wanted to become "an ambassador of sport and healthy life".
Source: Tennis.comFree membership: player news, the grass court Atlas, the rankings and the grass season calendar.
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