After a restful vacation on the Montenegro beaches, Jelena Jankovic is joyful again and says that she has put her horrific first half of the year behind her.
It’s hard to know whether the bounce in her step will be getting a lot of air time by the end of the summer, but she said she would forget about her poor Slam results and focus on the task at hand, which is regain a measure of respectability, and back up her claim that when she’s right in the head and sound of body, that’s she can be the world best.
“I was playing without enjoyment and I had no passion and if you aren’t passionate and having fun it’s not the same,” Jankovic said. “You are too nervous and my game was breaking down and you not the same player anymore.”
At Stanford, she let go of match points against Marion Bartoli and on Saturday night in Cincy against Elena Dementieva, nearly let the same fate befall her but scratched out an 8-6 in the third set break win.
It’s taken a good part of the year, but former No. 1 Jelena Jankovic showed that her speed and quick-fisted attack hasn’t completely disappeared when she dismantled the enigmatic No. 1 Dinara Safina 6-4, 6-2 to win the Cincinnati.
It’s taken a good part of the year, but former No. 1 Jelena Jankovic showed that her speed and quick-fisted attack hasn’t completely disappeared when she dismantled the enigmatic No. 1 Dinara Safina 6-4, 6-2 to win the Cincinnati.
Jankovic, who has had a miserable year at the Slams, recently said that she was refreshed and ready to take on the last portion of the year with a vengeance, but clearly, she needed a major boost of confidence and finally got one.
At Stanford, she let go of match points against Marion Bartoli and on Saturday night in Cincy against Elena Dementieva, nearly let the same fate befall her but scratched out an 8-6 in the third set break win.
But then on Sunday against Dinara Safina in the Cincy final , she was fleet, smart and lethal from inside the baseline, taking far more chances than the flat Russian, who showed almost no spunk in the contest.
“It’s a good win for me, I’m happy that I’m back,” said Jankovic, who climbed to No. 4 in the rankings. “I’m really pleased that I was able to play well today and beat the top player in the world. got quite a few good wins under my belt this week, which is very good for my confidence coming into the U.S. Open. I’m back in this group of (top) players and hopefully I can keep my form up.”
Jankovic’s game plunged to almost fathomless depths after 2008, when she snared the year’s end top spot by grinding away in the fall with a large amount of success. As all of her fans know, she blames a wrong-headed off-season training program for the results, where she put on 15 pounds, mostly muscle, as she hit the weight room and the track for short sprints.
“Every year I was making improvement and last year finished strong and I was beating all the top players and I was starting to dominate women’s tennis. Then I did all the running and lifting weights… Doing things not related to things that puts you off and can make you slower. I could hit harder but I lost explosiveness and in tennis that’s the most important thing.”
Instead of prospering, Jankovic lost her style base, as she was no longer able to tirelessly counterpunch foes to death from off the court, which at least partly explains her hair-pulling losses to Bartoli in Australia, to Sorana Cirstea at Roland Garros and to Melanie Oudin at Wimbledon.
But now she says she feel like dancing again and for the first time all year, when she goes to practice, is loving sprinting side to side.
“It’s amazing,” she said. “I’m re-charged. I have a clear mind for the second part of the season. What’s done is done and I want to be in the moment and go forward and get back to my form. I know I can play and move well and compete with the top players as good as I was, if not better.”
Jankovic, who was the 2008 year-end No. 1, says it’s important to be consistent, and if a player is losing in the first rounds of the WTA tournaments outside of the Grand Slams, she’s digging herself a deep hole.
The Serbian is nothing if not bold. Recentlt, when asked about who the tour’s real No.1 is, Jankovic said that in her mind, Safina is not the world’s best player. She said that it’s important to play well in between the Slams and credited with Safina for doing so, but wouldn’t buy into the Russian as the tour’s true dominator.
“I think I’m the best player and I should always think like that, but if I had to pick someone after me, I’d pick Serena,” she said. “Serena moves well, is strong and more complete. To be number one, you should be complete and if you are number one you have to be beating the Williams sisters. I’m one of the rare players who has a positive record against the Williams sisters (Jankovic is 5-4 against Venus and 3-4 against Serena). Safina has beaten both of them twice (she’s 2-9 combined against the sisters). If you want to be No. 1, you have to be up there with them.”
Safina is a combined 2-9 against the Williams sisters, but says that Jankovic’s perception of what should define the number one ranking is ill conceived.
“The ranking system is not only based if you beat Serena and Venus,” she said. “It’s based on how you play the whole year. It has nothing to do with what your record is against them. Did she beat them in the final of a Grand Slam? No. It doesn’t count when you beat them at a Tier IV [tournament].”
But is was JJ who backed up that claim in Cincy.
“This is my time to come back,” she said. “I love playing on hard courts. I’m moving very well again and my game is coming back. I’m positive. I’m out there with a smile on my face, and I bring some, how do you say, interesting things into tennis again. Every match I got better and better and at the end, I won the title. It’s a big title and it’s been a while since I have done this. Hopefully I can continue with the consistent results.”
