Beautiful, charitable and talented, Ana Ivanovic has battled the pretty tennis player stereotype and proved her critics wrong.
But as this 21-year-old is finding out, staying at the top can be harder than getting there.
It is in a karaoke booth that Ana Ivanovic proves she is flawed. Wearing tracksuit pants and a blue singlet top, coloured lights spinning, she twirls and waves one hand goofily in the air as she dances to a Diana Ross tune.
“Upside down you’re turning me,” Ivanovic sings out of key. “You’re giving love instinctively”.
She moves awkwardly, theatrically pulling the microphone back, as she points her finger at the camera.
She descends into giggles and resorts to miming parts of the song. Singing is something Ivanovic can’t do well. But what does it matter? This is the woman who calls up UNICEF to volunteer her services, studies economics and takes exams between grand slams. The woman who says the roguish Andrew Symonds is her favourite Australian sportsman and often decorates magazine pages like a supermodel.
She’s a sports beauty devoid of pretension, and one who has won a grand slam title. But when asked about her imperfections she insists there are many things she can’t do. “I mean I can’t sing,” Ivanovic admits through a torrent of giggles. That’s an understatement; she couldn’t hold a note in a bucket. The incriminating YouTube footage is proof.
Ana Ivanovic
“But obviously I appreciate what I have and I feel very fortunate to have what I have at a young age,” Ivanovic, 21, says. “I think it’s normal as human beings that we want more and more and more. You think: ‘Have I got everything? Can I have more?’ There’s always something. But you’ve got to appreciate, realise: ‘Hey, I’ve got so many things in my life so I should just appreciate it’. Obviously I have goals, and something more that I want to achieve, but I have to take life as it comes. I don’t need to have everything right here, right now.”
Ivanovic has graced the pages of US Vogue and models expensive watches. She has the most visited website of any sportswoman in the world, which is unsurprising as she is often voted “sexiest”, “most beautiful” and as having the “most beautiful body in sport” by various polls.
“She has everything,” her long-time manager, Dan Holzmann, says. “And she is natural. Some people are made. But with Ana we didn’t have to do anything. She is smart, has a good heart – a pretty girl who’s very competitive and fights for every ball.”
Oh yes, let’s not forget she can play. Ivanovic has won eight WTA singles titles but, of course, the highlight is her French Open win last year. During that perfect French spring Ivanovic also collected the No.1 world ranking.
She had everything. But since she cried tears of joy on clay nearly a year ago, Ivanovic has wobbled under the weight of having it all, with her ranking dropping to seven. She injured her thumb between the French Open and Wimbledon and was bundled out in the third round at the All England Club. Following that, Ivanovic failed to win back-to-back matches in her next five events including an early second round exit at the US Open. During this time she admitted being No.1 was a cross to bear. After her 12-week reign at the top she wondered how Roger Federer had survived as No.1 in the men’s game for so long.
When she bowed out of the Australian Open this year in the third round, the critics again questioned her heart and talent. Would she just be a one-slam wonder?
Ivanovic says she knew the magnitude of her French Open success last year. Her Roland Garros win relieved the burden that comes with being a beautiful and talented sportswoman. The parallels once drawn between her and Anna Kournikova were quickly dismissed.
“Yes, before definitely people were [distracted by my looks],” Ivanovic says. “I’d played disappointingly before that French Open win. People were saying: ‘Can she do it?’ It was great to make that happen. It’s one thing getting into the final, it’s another altogether winning it. That gave me a lot of confidence.” However, since winning her first grand slam title she admits she has struggled to maintain that confidence. But if anything, Ivanovic has proved that adversity is a fuel for her.
She grew up scheduling her training sessions according to when the bombs would be most likely to drop on Belgrade. She remembers as a 12-year-old she had to practise between seven and nine in the morning because from midday the bombing would start. Those dark days during NATO’s 78-day bombardment of the city amid the Kosovo crisis of 1999 were harrowing times for Ivanovic. The grief of that period aside, the tennis facilities were unconventional. In the winter Ivanovic crafted her game in an abandoned Olympic-sized swimming pool that had been drained of water, carpeted and converted into an indoor court. In trying financial circumstances her parents, Dragana, a lawyer, and Miroslav, a businessman, still managed to support her tennis dream. “My family was in a very tough situation, my country was in a very bad place,” Ivanovic says. “They were some very hard years [but] my parents always supported me.
I was just this kid who wanted to play and people were finding it hard to survive.”
During the spring of 1999, Ivanovic spent four months sheltering from the air raids. She remembers her crippling fear as she heard the bombs and felt the building shake. Despite the bombardment her family refused to tuck themselves away in the cellar. They filled the house with “positive” people and made an effort to remain emotionally resilient. Ivanovic now wears her positivity like an armour.
While many sports stars may sour with success, Ivanovic has not changed. She’s a walking Disneyland. Ivanovic bubbles through press conferences and even the most inane questions don’t trouble her cheery demeanour. “Yeah, I always have been like this,” Ivanovic says. “Ever since I was a kid I’ve always thought it very important to be happy inside. There’s a lot of bad things happening in the world, but it’s important to try to stay happy and appreciate what you’ve got and don’t look externally for the happiness.”
Her parents have been the key to her attitude and success, says Holzmann. “If you met her parents you’d know she’s their daughter,” he says. “I have met many tennis parents on the tour and some of them are so crazy and manipulative.”
Everything changed for Ivanovic when, as a 14-year-old, she met Holzmann, a Swiss businessman with a passion for tennis. His tennis coach told him about Ivanovic, whose sponsor was facing bankruptcy, so the teenager and her mother flew to Switzerland for a visit.
In their first meeting, Holzmann remembers Ivanovic having “warm eyes” but a steely determination. “She knew what she wanted,” Holzmann says. “She said to me: ‘I want to be No.1.’ And I believed her.
I believed this 14-year-old girl.”
Holzmann, who had made his riches from the vitamin drink Juice Plus, decided to finance and manage Ivanovic’s career. However, her first match with Holzmann on her side was a disaster. She lost. This led to tears and a locker room lock in. He had travelled to Milan to watch Ivanovic and she was devastated that she had failed. She sobbed for hours. “She wanted to prove she was great,” Holzmann says. “She thought I was going to cancel her contract.”
During the next few years Holzmann spent $500,000 on Ivanovic’s career. Within two years of becoming a pro, she had repaid his investment. Today, the pair have a sturdy friendship. He is kept busy helping manage her multi-million-dollar empire, seeking the right endorsement opportunities. Selling Ivanovic requires little effort. Her image is faultless and she has remained an unchanged “modest girl” since he met her seven years ago. “She’s not Little Miss Perfect but the nice thing about Ana is she is very natural. She is very different to, say, Jelena Jankovic, the Williams sisters. You look at Maria Sharapova, these people, they are thinking: ‘What can I do to be loved, to be more respected by my fans today?’
“Ana has a life outside tennis. If she didn’t play tennis she would be a doctor.”
The attention lately has also been on Ivanovic’s love life. In the past she has dated Spanish player Fernando Verdasco and she was recently linked to Australian golfer Adam Scott. The pair are both brand ambassadors for Rolex and are said to have “hooked up” in the last Australian summer. Her management states the pair are “friends”. For now there is no significant other. The only man Ivanovic has recently brought into her life is American coach Craig Kardon. It’s the first time in two years she has employed a full-time coach. In her first tournament in February under Kardon’s tuition she defeated Alisa Kleybanova, the Russian who had rubbed her out of the 2009 Australian Open. “We have a firm view of how my game should develop,” she says.
Holzmann says Kardon could be just the man she needs, reflecting on her slump after the French Open. “It was tough,” Holzmann says. “A lot happened to her; she became No.1, won a grand slam tournament. Once you get there it is even more difficult to stay at the top.” And she has 10 million people in Serbia watching her. Ivanovic is feted in her home country. The President of Serbia, Boris Tadic, attended her 20th birthday party.
She admits it can be hard constantly having people approach her in the street, but, Ivanovic finds good in this, saying it’s nice to be a role model. “Wherever I go many people come up to talk to me and give me advice on my shots, on my game – on everything,” Ivanovic says and then descends into another heap of giggles.
“I understand it’s how it is,” she says. “If I make a change to a young kid to play any sport, not only tennis, instead of spending time in front of the TV or computer, that is good. I want to give them a good example: ‘Hey, go out and play and see the world’.”
Although the tennis road may have been bumpy, Ivanovic says, in her optimistic way, that things will get better. “I want to win more grand slams. I think I’ve got the ability to achieve that, I know that I’ve got to work very hard for it. Yes, I think I’ve the game and talent to do that.”
source: www.watoday.com.au
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