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Five years ago they were the stars of the Australian Open. But in the time period between then and now, Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic have continually underperformed at Grand Slam tournaments.
Due to this, their rankings have dipped.
To me, the 2008 Australian Open remains one of my favourite tournaments. That’s because Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic, Novak Djokovic and Janko Tipsarevic were the main stars of the tournament.
While Djokovic and Tipsarevic have since gone on to become Top 10 mainstays, the women have flopped since their French Open semi-final encounter the very same year.
After Ana Ivanovic won Roland Garros in 2008, it seemed that she had the world at her feet.
She had just become a Grand Slam champion and had claimed the World No. 1 ranking, completing a spectacular rise from training in a war-torn country to the top of the world. Or so it seemed.
What followed were four years of unrelenting disappointment from the fan favourite.
At Wimbledon, Ana won her first round match quite easily and it seemed she would be able to handle the pressure of being a World No. 1. But in her next match, she found herself in a very tight battle against Nathalie Dechy of France and was only able to pull off a miraculous victory after saving several match points (just clipping past the net on one of them).
But it got too much for her and she lost her next match to Zheng Jie, then ranked #133 in the world.
Things didn’t get better after Wimbledon. She was forced to miss the Beijing Olympics due to a thumb injury and then she was knocked out in the second round of the US Open by World No. 188 Julie Coin, a result which saw her lose her top ranking.
Though she would lift late in the season, reaching the semi-finals in Zurich and winning Linz, she went winless at the year-end championships and then withdrew after her second round match due to injury.
She finished 2008 ranked No. 5.
What would follow were four generally disappointing seasons. She continually underperformed at the Grand Slams, dropped out of the Top 10 and by the end of 2009 she had dropped out of the Top 20.
As bad as 2009 appeared to be (only 24 wins from 38 matches), 2010 was worse. She lost in the first round of Wimbledon and dropped to a low of World No. 65. Entering the Cincinnati tournament, she had lost 17 of her last 29 matches dating back to August 2009.
The second half of Ivanovic’s 2010 season saw her win 21 of her last 27 matches as she brought about resurrecting her career.
She was drawn against the recent Stanford winner Victoria Azarenka in the first round of Cincinnati and despite having beaten her in Rome earlier that year, she was a clear underdog. She was down 6-2, 5-3 at one stage before rallying to upset the Belarusian in three sets.
This set the precedent for a magical run in the Ohio capital where she would eventually reach the semi-finals before being forced to concede her tie against Kim Clijsters after injuring her foot.
Ana Ivanovic’s run there lifted her back into the WTA’s Top 40, and the confidence and serve that had deserted her was suddenly back.
What followed was a run to the Round of 16 at the US Open, where she had only five rankings points to defend after her heartbreaking defeat to Kateryna Bondarenko in the first round in 2009 (Ironically, Bondarenko would lose a second round match to Dominika Cibulkova in a final set tiebreak, with the Slovak going on to make the quarter-finals).
On the first anniversary of that match (September 1), Ana produced one of her best victories all year, crushing Zheng Jie in the second round and avenging her defeat to the Chinese player at Wimbledon two years earlier.
Ana ended up losing only to the defending (and eventual) champion Kim Clijsters in the fourth round, but her run to the final 16 gained her much needed rankings points.
Ana finished 2010 very strongly, capturing two titles on her way to re-entering the WTA’s Top 20 at the end of the year, finishing World No. 17.
But the 2011 season was an overall disappointment, with her first half of the year mirroring that of the previous year. An abdominal strain ruined her Australian Open preparations and she ultimately lost in the first round when she had only second round points to defend.
It was the same story at the French Open, and her Wimbledon appearance was also brief, going out in the third round to Petra Cetkovska, an opponent she had double-bageled at Roland Garros three years ago.
Following Wimbledon, she hired Nigel Sears as her coach and results immediately returned, reaching the semis at San Diego, and repeating her fourth round effort at the US Open, her quarter-final run at Beijing and her run to the title in Bali. She finished the season outside the Top 20.
2012 was again a disappointment as Ivanovic failed to make a single WTA Tour final all year. Also, she suffered the ignominy of a double-bagel defeat at the Rogers Cup, failing to win a game against Roberta Vinci.
As it turned out, it was the turning point of both players’ seasons as both of them would reach the quarter-finals at the US Open.
For Ivanovic, it was her first Grand Slam quarter-final since winning the French Open in 2008. For Vinci it was her first ever Grand Slam quarter-final at 29 years of age.
Ivanovic only ended up losing to Serena Williams, the eventual champion. Ivanovic would finish the season ranked World No. 13, her highest non-Top 10 year-end ranking since 2006.
And so far this season she has showed some ominous form, though in her most recent match against Yung-jan Chan she was very shaky and was pretty lucky to win.
Since Jelena Jankovic finished 2008 as the world’s top player, she, like Ivanovic, has also underperformed at Grand Slam tournaments. Jankovic failed to make a single Grand Slam quarter-final in 2009 and the lowest point came at the US Open, where she crashed out in the second round to Yaroslava Shvedova.
Jankovic was able to bounce back and enjoy a solid 2010 season, but her season started with a third round loss to Alona Bondarenko at the Australian Open. It seems the Serbs were cursed playing against the Bondarenko sisters at back-to-back Grand Slams.
Jankovic rose to World No. 2 after Wimbledon (where she had to retire in the fourth round against eventual finalist Vera Zvonareva) and finished the season in the Top 10.
However her 2011 season was a disappointing one, going out in the second round of the 2011 Australian Open, losing her Indian Wells title defence to her compatriot Ana Ivanovic and dropping out of the Top 10, never to climb back in it again.
Additionally, she suffered a first round loss at Wimbledon. Jankovic ended 2011 ranked World No. 13.
Her 2012 season was another disappointment; at one stage she was in danger of being unseeded for the US Open. After being given the 30th seeding, she was eventually ousted in the third round.
Preceding this though was a very disappointing grass season where she lost in the first rounds of Wimbledon (to Kim Clijsters) and the Olympics (to eventual gold medallist Serena Williams). Jelena Jankovic would finish 2012 outside the Top 20 and for the second year in a row she failed to win a single WTA Tour title.
Now, come Friday night, both players will go head-to-head for only the second time at a Grand Slam tournament. One of them will have to lose this match and in the process lose 120 rankings points, as both of them reached the fourth round last year.
I think Ivanovic had the more solid year last year, having won 37 matches (equalling her 2008 tally) and reaching a Grand Slam quarter-final. Also she showed solid form at the Hopman Cup recently but had a slip-up in the final which Serbia ultimately lost to Spain.
Ivanovic should also consider herself lucky to even be in the third round, as she was flat after losing the second set to Yung-jan Chan 6-1.
Jankovic on the other hand comes into the match having avoided a disaster of her own, having been within two points of defeat in her second round match against Maria Joao Koehler. Additionally, she didn’t do well at the warm-up tournament in Sydney, losing to Roberta Vinci in the second round.
Being a fan of Ana Ivanovic, I would be tempted to tip her to win in three sets but watching both players today was a pain, as both played slugged through three-set matches.
Whoever wins will be doomed in the Round of 16 because one of them will run into a red-hot Agnieszka Radwanska, who has yet to drop even a single set this season.
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