The tennis-playing career of Ana Ivanovic has come to an end. At the age of 29, not wanting to put her body through more grueling trials and endurance tests, Ivanovic decided to call it quits.
Although 29 seems like a very young age to retire, in women’s tennis, it’s the twilight years. Ivanovic first burst on the scene in 2005 when she started making it into the third rounds of the grand slams. The French Open was always her best of the four as she made it to the quarters in her first appearance at Roland Garros. The highlight of her career would come just three years later. That was her elite moment and she’s really struggled to be in the elite ranks ever since then. She was always a player that had the potential to threaten but would more often than not underachieve. She still compiled an impressive grand slam record of 108-47 in the grand slams and made it to at least the quarterfinals of each of the four. She’s claimed 15 WTA titles and was the world No. 1 player back in 2009. That’s a pretty impressive career. We’ll miss the Serbian Starlet and now that she’s retired, let’s look back to the moments that clearly stand out above all the others in her career.
2008 French Open Championship
Ivanovic will never be known as one of the best tennis players to never win a major championship… because she did win one. She wasn’t able to replicate her success, but she did achieve it once, which is more than notable players such as Dinara Safina, Elena Dementieva, and Jelena Jankovic, contemporaries who never managed to break through.
In this tournament, Ivanvoic did in fact beat two of those players in order to lift the trophy that changed her life. She overcame Jankovic, her Serbian friend and countrywoman, 6-4 in the third set of a ferocious match. Calmed and emboldened by that success under considerable pressure, she then beat Safina in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, in the final. Ivanovic made the final of the 2007 French Open. Instead of allowing herself to be deflated and depressed by losing in the final, she grew from that experience and played even better tennis over the course of the next year.
2008 Australian Open Semifinal Victory
In that quality year of tennis – the best of Ivanovic’s career – she remained steadily good from the 2007 French through the 2008 French. She made the final at each of those tournaments in Paris, and the other major tournament where she went the distance was in Melbourne in January of 2008. She moved to the semifinals and ran into a real roadblock at the star. She lost the first set 6-0 to Daniela Hantuchova, After getting run off the court in that set, she easily could have collapsed, and in future years, she did in fact show less resilience. In 2008, however, she was tough as nails. She fought back to win 6-4 in the third over Hantuchova. She lost the final to Maria Sharapova, but she continued to move her career forward. This was a very special tournament for her at the time.
2007 French Open Semifinal Victory
This was Ivanovic’s first major final. She eventually fell to Justine Henin, but she had to get there first, in order to begin to realize her potential. In the semifinal, she beat Maria Sharapova 6-2, 6-1, in a match which was surprisingly easy. In retrospect, the outcome wasn’t that shocking, because Sharapova continued to struggle as a clay-court player until her 2012 French Open title, when she learned how to move fluidly on clay. She had not turned the corner on the surface, referring to herself as a “cow on ice” when playing on clay. Ivanovic was the more effective mover at this time, and she took advantage.
2007 Wimbledon Quarterfinal Victory
Ivanovic never made a Wimbledon final, but she did reach the semifinals. She got locked into a tough quarterfinal with Nicole Vaidisova, a young and promising Czech player whose career never fully panned out. She found a way to survive, 7-5 in the third set. This was another part of the great 13-month period of Ivanovic’s career, in which everything came together for her.
Unfortunately for Ivanovic, that would be the furthest she’d ever make it at Wimbledon. She never got past the fourth round since that time.
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