Ana Ivanovic's odyssey, Serbia's triumph

PARIS: It was time for another French Open women's final, and though four-time winner Justine Hénin was still on the grounds, she was no longer on the clay.

This year, with Hénin retired and watching from the front row, it would be time for a new Grand Slam champion, and it turned out to be the same young, elegant Serbian who had let her nerves get the best of her against Hénin in last year's flop of a final.

Ana Ivanovic is a better, fitter, more composed contender now, and on Saturday, she filled the void at the top of the clay-court game in style by defeating the 13th-seeded Dinara Safina of Russia, 6-4, 6-3.

"Obviously the nerves were still there, but that's normal," Ivanovic said. "Last year's final was a great learning experience for me."

Ivanovic, 20, already was guaranteed to become number one in the women's rankings Monday after beating her Serbian compatriot Jelena Jankovic in the semifinals. Now, Ivanovic has her first Grand Slam singles title along with the top spot, and Serbia has its latest reason to organize a celebration in Belgrade.

In January, Novak Djokovic became the first Serbian man to win a major singles title at the Australian Open. "Going into today's final, I thought of it," Ivanovic said. "I said, 'Come on. He could do it. I could to it, too.' So it's something that for sure motivates, and I hope also many young kids will get inspired from us."

Ivanovic is a towering, fast-talking brunette with a trump card of a forehand and olive-skinned beauty that would not look out of place on a classical Greek urn. Though she has a friendly, upbeat disposition - unlike some of the harder-edged women's stars over the years - she had to overcome major adversity to become a major champion.

Ivanovic was part of the remarkable Serbian tennis generation that developed despite the internal conflicts linked to the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. At 13, she was reduced to training on a makeshift court in Belgrade that was in the bottom of an empty swimming pool: a court where the proximity of the pool walls made it inadvisable to hit the ball cross court.

Later, like Jankovic and Djokovic, Ivanovic became an expatriate as a teenager to take her game to the next level. Ivanovic, not considered a can't-miss junior, based herself in Roger Federer's home city of Basel, Switzerland after Dan Holzmann, an Israeli-born Swiss businessman agreed to fund her career at a time when money and opportunity were drying up.

"I met the family and 24 hours later, I made the decision to help," Holzmann said. "We had a great long night all together in my apartment in Basel, and we talked and talked until almost the morning light, and the next morning I knew I would be part of it.

"I have a lot of people working with me and colleagues and offices, but to hear it from a 15 year-old girl, so committed and so clear, that she wants to be number one, I was really impressed."

With Holzmann's support, approximately $10,000 to $20,000 a month in the early years, the family hired veteran coach Eric Van Harpen, who had worked with the Spanish stars Conchita Martínez and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario.

Ivanovic made her first major impression at age 17 at Roland Garros when she upset French star Amélie Mauresmo and reached the 2005 quarterfinals. But questionable fitness and a tendency to get tight under big-match pressure held her back until last year when, under the guidance of the veteran coach Sven Groeneveld, she rolled to the final before winning just three games against Hénin.

She would fail to control her emotions again in this year's Australian Open final against Maria Sharapova. "I had a few sleepless nights after that, honestly," Ivanovic said. "Part of me was already thinking about possibly holding the trophy, you know. So this time, I really tried to change that and don't think about that at all and just focus on my game. There were some moments where this thought would still come up, but I managed to control it much better."

This time, the Russian on the other side of the net was not an established winner accustomed to the pomp and circumstance of a Grand Slam final. Safina, the younger, 22-year-old sister of former men's number one Marat Safin, had never been past the quarterfinals of a major tournament until now.

But Ivanovic still had her own mental challenges. Though she has a full-time conditioning coach in Scott Byrnes, she has no full-time tennis coach, choosing to work part-time with Groeneveld, an employee of the sporting goods company Adidas. Groeneveld is available to help all players under contract with Adidas, but because Safina is also with the company, he was unable to give pre-match tactical advise to Ivanovic. Adopting a neutral position during the final, he sat in the Adidas box instead of Ivanovic's box.

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