Jelena Jankovic kept Serena Williams from defending her Australian Open title in January, but on Saturday in Miami, Williams refused to be denied a chance to reclaim her former glory on her home court at the Sony Ericsson Open.
After overcoming two major lapses of concentration, Serena Williams defeated world No. 3 Jelena Jankovic 6-1, 5-7, 6-3 to win her fifth title in Key Biscayne.
Williams was only four points away from closing out the win in the second set, but Jankovic broke her serve at love and rattled off the next two games to level the match. After Serena took the first game of the third set, Jankovic called for a trainer to treat upper respiratory problems.
Serena raced to a 5-0 lead in the third set before she again lost her concentration and allowed Jankovic to save three match points and get back to 5-3.
Williams received a code violation for racquet abuse after Jankovic broke her serve for the fifth time before finally closing out the match with an overhead smash on her eighth championship point.
“I was definitely up and on my way to glory within an hour, but I started making a lot of mistakes, and Jelena obviously started playing better too,” said Williams.
“Players who have nothing to lose are the most dangerous people in life on the court. I thought I had like 15 match points; I’m glad to know it wasn’t. It was weird.”
“I tried to come back,” conceded Jankovic. “I tried to fight. I thought Serena really had trouble closing out the match. But she was very strong. When she’s playing her best tennis, when she’s serving well, it’s just tough to match up against her. Even though I work hard physically, I can never in my life be as strong as her. She was the better one today, and she’s the winner of this tournament.”
Williams is projected to dip from No.8 to No.9 on the new rankings, which will be released on Monday. By winning the title Serena maintained her points total, but Dementieva will jump over her because she reached the quarters this year and didn’t play the event last year. Jankovic is projected to stay No.3.
I watched this one, and for a moment during the 3rd set I could force myself to imagine the impossible – Jankovic coming back from 5 love down…
I am happy Serena is back, and barring no injuries, I think she is climbing higher in the rankings.
Its questionable whether Jankovics illness has anything to do with the loss today, but I feel her server/game has improved slightly.
A relatively entertaining final.
Dapxin, I agree. It was far from the best final I’ve ever seen, but definitely one of the most entertaining and interesting this season.
I was watching it with my father and we too were starting to wonder if Jelena could win, especially after she saved three championship points when Serena led 0-40.
Ha! I watched it with my dad too aaress! He is clueless about tennis but he loves to watch Serena play. I knew Jelena had no chance of coming back and winning that 3rd set! Serena had it under control and as soon as she got her mind together she closed it out.
This was a truly exciting tournament. I would say better than the australian because after the quartfinals it was dead! Go Serena!
A shame for JJ but she still seems to be stuck in the “second tier of players” that you don’t expect to beat the elite when the chips are down. The elite IMHO are the Williams sister, Henin and Sharapova, and then regardless of how good they are, and the rankings say that they are among the very best in the world, I still don’t ever expect Kuznetsova, Jankovic or Ivanovic to beat any of them in a title match or a Grand Slam. And then there’s a third group (Chakvetadze, Hantuchova and to a lesser extent Vaidisova and maybe Bartoli) who aspire to the second group (and Mauresmo who is desperately trying to stay in that group!)
Maybe there will be some “promotion” and “relegation” between the various groups, but that’s the way I see it at the moment. At least Roland Garros is looking like being more of a tournament this year with Henin at lot less dominant at the moment.
How many of us didn’t watch this with our dads?
Hippy to all you daddy’s girl(s) !
Once again serena come back very strongly in his homeland and keep title with her. she is superb player but i want to see maria on top in next grand slam WTA