For Ana Ivanovic, It’s Complicated

It feels natural to want success for Ana Ivanovic. She’s one of those players who just kind of pulls at your heart strings. She’s adorable, and she’s supremely sweet, like a pint of vanilla Haagen Dazs smothered over a fresh-out-of-the-oven brownie. Additionally, in spite of her international celebrity status that at times has transcended – and distracted from – her tennis, Ivanovic is one of the nicest, most genuine and down to earth women on the Tour.

The 22-year-old Serbian wears her heart on her sleeve, and her disappointment is palpable when it comes to the current state of her game.

Still, even though the straight set loss to Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli in Stanford represented a setback of sorts, Ivanovic feeels that progress is being made. There are signs of life – albeit fewer than her new coach or her legions of fans would like – but the road ahead still slopes upward. “Overall, there were lots of positive things coming from this match,” she said afterwards, in a typically philosphical tone. “And I just have to kind of move forward.”

As Ana sat in front of the microphone at the post-Bartoli press conference, cameras clicked and tape recorders were lined up. They all pointed inquisitively in her direction, trying to interpret what may come next. Here was a former No. 1 player and a former Grand Slam champion, in the prime of her life and at the height of her physical prowess, but something was still noticeably amiss.

You can blame it on the ball toss gone awry, or the lack of top notch competition to challenge her as she hurdled the rest of the WTA field in 2008, but there is more to Ana’s recent decline than that.

Ivanovic possessed the WTA equivalent of magic in those days, and that magic instilled in her the belief that whenever she swung the racquet, good things were going happen. Call it confidence or call it freedom, but whenever you can play without ever imagining failure, success is the logical progression – it’s that simple. But what’s happened to Ivanovic of late isn’t so simple. As the losses pile up and the questions multiply, Ivanovic has become a victim of a word that can be cancerous to even the most gifted of athletes: doubt.

It’s been a long and protracted journey out of the top-50 for Ivanovic, but even though she now resides in that “what have I got to lose?” spot in the rankings, Ivanovic continues playing like someone who is more concerned with losing than inspired by the possibility of winning.

She made that clear in Stanford, when she spoke to the press in her usual heartfelt manner. “It’s very hard because I always feel it’s a few points, here and there. It’s those points…they don’t seem as big but they are big. When I start turning those points to my favor it’s going to make a big difference.”

While Ivanovic claims to be gaining confidence in her game and in her team (she has downsized to a trainer and her new coach Heinz Gunthardt), she stressed that her improvement is an evolving process that will take time, and plenty of good old fashioned hard work.

“If I manage to still work on that, and keep working the way I’ve been working, I think it’s going to start coming together. I already feel a big difference when I’m out there, and I do have more confidence, and it shows,” she said.

Ana Ivanovic may be young in years, but she is wise enough to be a player who knows that ultimately the task of rebuilding her fragile psyche will be up to her. “The most important thing, it really has to come from me,” she said. “Confidence comes from yourself.”

Chris Oddo is a freelance tennis writer and blogger who is based in San Francisco, California. He is a regular commenter at OTB under the moniker The Fan Child. You can follow his blog at http://thefanchild.blogspot.com.