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PARIS: Second seed Ana Ivanovic won the battle of the Serbs in a
thrilling French Open semi-final on Thursday and will play
Russia’s Dinara Safina for the title on Saturday.
The 20-year-old Ivanovic defeated 23-year-old
Jelena Jankovic 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to reach the final at Roland Garros
for the second straight year having lost to Justine Henin in last
year’s final.
She also reached the Australian Open final in
January but lost to Maria Sharapova.
For third-seeded Jankovic it was the fourth time
she had played in a Grand Slam semi-final and the fourth time she
had failed to make it through.
The 13th seeded Safina had earlier defeated
compatriot and fourth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-3, 6-2 in the first
of the semifinals.
“It was a tough match and I managed to stay
strong at the end to win it,” said Ivanovic.
Jankovic, again wearing an arm brace to ward off
the pain she has been feeling from tendonitis, opened the stronger
and broke serve to 15 in the second game to take a 3-0 lead.
She threatened to make it 4-0, but Ivanovic held
on visibly growing in confidence after winning the game at the end
of a long, punishing rally.
She broke back in the following game only to
drop her own serve in the next as Jankovic got to 4-2.
But the younger woman’s heavier groundstrokes
started to make the difference as she won the next four games to
take the set 6-4 in 41 minutes.
Jankovic dropped her serve for the fourth
straight time to open the second set allowing Ivanovic to jump out
into a 2-0 lead.
In stark contrast to the first few games,
Ivanovic was looking comfortable on her serve while it was a
struggle each time for her opponent on hers.
But all that changed in the sixth game of the
set when Ivanovic inexplicably let slip a 40-0 lead to allow
Jankovic to draw level at 3-3.
She was broken again two games later and
Jankovic served out to level the scores although she needed four set
points to do so.
Ivanovic had lost her way and against one of the
grittiest players on the women’s circuit that was a fatal mistake.
Jankovic won the first two games of the deciding
set to make it seven games in a row, but Ivanovic stopped the rot
and got back on level terms at 3-3 by breaking to love in the sixth
game.
Another exchange of service breaks took it to
4-4 and two games later Ivanovic played her best game of the
semifinal opening up with her groundstrokes to clinch the win.
There was the added bonus for Ivanovic in that
her win coupled with the defeat of Kuznetsova means that she will
take over from Maria Sharapova as world’s No.1 at the end of this
tournament win or lose in the final.
She has played Safina three times and won twice,
but the Russian won the only time they have played on clay in Berlin
three years ago.
-- AFP
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