Ana Ivanovic: Ready to Win a Slam?

Monica Seles: Ana’s childhood heroine. Ana Ivanovic’s childhood heroine, Monica Seles, didn’t scale up the ladder as slowly as the statuesque and deceptively ambitious brunette has. For Seles it was: Here I come, ba-boom, ka-boom, see what just hit you between the eyes, Steffi? New Pacific Life Open champion Ivanovic’s career has been full of fits and starts, a title at the beginning of 2005 in small Canberra and then impressive wins followed by erratic losses. Her next title didn’t come until Tier I ’06 Montreal, when the Serbian stunned Martina Hingis for the title. But that was her sole crown that season as her serve, her fitness and her decision-making were suspect. Last year, she began to improve all these areas but still wasn’t quite right yet; titles came her way in Berlin, Los Angeles and Luxembourg. But peppered in between those titles and some Slam wins over Svetlana Kuznetsova, Maria Sharapova, Jelena Jankovic and Nicole Vaidisova were bizarre upsets and significant losses to Justine Henin, Venus Williams and to Sharapova. Did she believe she’s ready for prime time? She wasn’t quite ready for prime time, because she wasn’t sure if she quite belonged. Seles won seven Slam crowns…