Ana Ivanovic of Serbia hit 31 winners, including 23 off her powerful forehand, to beat Russia's Nadia Petrova 7-5, 6-4 to win the East West Bank Classic on Sunday.
Ivanovic completed a big day for Serbian tennis by winning her second tournament of the year. Fellow Serb Novak Djokovic upset world No. 1 Roger Federer in three sets to win the Rogers Cup title in Montreal.
"I saw some of his match," she said. "He played amazing tennis, so I was motivated to do the same thing."
PHOTO: AP
Ivanovic and Djokovic have been friends for about 14 years. They met as 4-year-olds at his parents' mountaintop restaurant in Belgrade. Growing up, they practiced together and played hide and seek.
"I hated when I had to search for him because I was scared," she said. "We never dreamed we could play Grand Slams at the same level. It's nice to know someone for so long. I love spending time with him."
That includes sharing dinner when their tournament paths cross, but there is no romance going on.
"We are really good friends, nothing more than that," she said.
A year ago, Ivanovic was ranked 19th. Yesterday, she was projected to rise one spot to a career-high fourth in the WTA Tour rankings. In between, the 19-year-old was the runner-up at the French Open and a semi-finalist at Wimbledon this year.
Ivanovic closed out the one-and-a-half-hour match by serving a love game, punctuated by an ace into the outside corner of the service box, one of four she had. She was broken just once after saving four break points in her first service game of the match.
She took the first set with a crosscourt forehand winner that was out of Petrova's reach.
Ivanovic led 4-2 in the second set before Petrova's forehand volley winner left the Russian trailing 5-4. Petrova hit 19 winners in the match, which were offset by 22 unforced errors.
Ivanovic dropped one set in five matches in Carson -- against Serb rival Jelena Jankovic in the semi-finals.
Petrova's coach had advised the 25-year-old Russian to pull Ivanovic wide by hitting to her backhand, making it harder for the Serb to hit her forehand on the run.
It didn't work.
"She just rips it off without even thinking," Petrova said. "Sometimes I think she didn't even know where it was going. It's the best forehand by far on tour."
Petrova advanced to the final when top-seeded Maria Sharapova defaulted because of a lower left leg strain on Saturday night.
Petrova, ranked ninth in the world, hasn't won a title since February.
Former European champions Celtic exited the UEFA Champions League in the qualifiers after a 3-2 penalty shoot-out defeat at Kazakhstan’s Kairat Almaty on Tuesday, following two goalless legs in the playoff tie. Kairat are to compete in the competition proper for the first time, while Norway’s Bodo/Glimt and Cyprus’s Pafos also secured debut appearances after coming through the playoffs. Celtic’s night ended in disappointment as they missed three penalties in the shoot-out, Daizen Maeda failing with the decisive spot-kick. The slugfest of a match went into extra-time with neither side finding the net and few overall chances, echoing the first
Rangers on Wednesday bowed out of the UEFA Champions League playoffs with a humiliating 6-0 defeat at the hands of Club Brugge which piles further pressure on head coach Russell Martin, while SL Benfica secured a place in the competition proper at the expense of Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce. The Glasgow giants traveled to Belgium right up against it after losing 3-1 at home in last week’s first leg, when they conceded three times in the opening 20 minutes. They never looked like turning the tie around as Club Brugge took the lead inside five minutes at the Jan Breydelstadion through Nicolo Tresoldi
Noah Lyles on Thursday warmed up for the upcoming athletics world championships by chasing down Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo to win the 200m at the Diamond League final. Lyles trailed Tebogo at the start, but gradually erased the deficit over the final 100m and pipped the Botswana sprinter to the line by centimeters. Lyles, the Olympic 100m champion and reigning world champion in both the 100m and 200m, clocked 19.74 seconds in a slight headwind. Tebogo was 0.02 seconds behind. It was Lyles’ sixth Diamond League title, a record for track athletes. “Six, that’s a big number,” Lyles said. “Shoot, that’s another record on
Mitch Brown finally had enough as he watched unfolding coverage of yet another case of homophobic abuse in the Australian Football League (AFL), and decided it was time to change the narrative. Brown contacted the Daily Aus with a message that the online news site published yesterday: “I played in the AFL for 10 years for the West Coast Eagles, and I’m a bisexual man.” In almost 130 years of top-flight competition in Australia’s homegrown football code, no past or active male player had publicly identified as bisexual or gay. Aussie Rules was a long way behind other types of
RSS