Advantage Ana

One of the hottest talents in tennis and ranked eighth in the world, Ana Ivanovic has been working on her game since the age of five, overcoming a tough upbringing in war-torn Serbia on the way. But she turns heads for more than her court skills – although she feels that this is not necessarily an asset on the women's circuit …

Serbian tennis star Ana Ivanovic has come a long way since dodging bombs in Belgrade as a child.

Having first picked up a racket aged five, she has emerged as one of the brightest prospects in women's tennis, taking the French Open title and number-one ranking on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour last summer. She is currently ranked eighth by the World Tennis Association.

The 21-year-old hits the ball beautifully and – with Maria Sharapova's star on the wane – is regarded as the only 'complete package' in women's tennis. Also, her statuesque figure, long dark hair, olive skin and sweet smile have see! n her hailed as the most beautiful player ever. It's easy to s! ee how o ne might be jealous. And, it seems, one is.

'There's really not much friendship between the girls on tour,' Ana tells me on a sunny afternoon in Rome, where she is playing in the Italian Open. 'There's so much rivalry and jealousy, so everyone just hangs out in their own camp. In the locker room and players' lounge you can feel the jealousy.

'It's a shame, because it would be so nice if we could catch up over dinner or go shopping. But, sadly, I have no close friends on the tour.'

Ana is, though, close to some of the Serbian men, including star player Novak Djokovic, whom she has known since they were toddlers in war-torn Belgrade. And sitting amid the wealth and glamour at this upscale event in one of Rome's most affluent districts, we're worlds away from Ana's humble beginnings.

'There's really not much friendship between the girls on tour. There's so much rivalry a! nd jealousy'

When she was growing up, Serbia was, due to the brutal reign of Slobodan Milosevic and the war against Kosovo, a pariah nation.

We meet in the back of a golf buggy that has been commandeered to whisk us from the press conference Ana has just held with the Italian media to the players' lounge, where our interview will take place. My first instinct, from the way she shakes my hand, smiles bashfully and diverts her gaze, is that Ana is – almost unbelievably, given that she has graced the pages of lads' mags, played for crowds of thousands and currently has the most visited website of any sportswoman – shy, and a bit gawky in the way that very tall women sometimes are.

This impression is confirmed when, upon realising that she, her press man and I will not all be able to squeeze our bottoms on to the buggy's back seat, she insists on perching her six-foot-one frame on the handrail so that the two of us can sit in comfort! .

As we make our way through a mob of Italian fans gabb! ling a m ile a minute and waving cigarettes, her cheeriness never falters. She gamely signs oversized tennis balls and baseball caps. Every head turns to catch a glimpse of Ana, who is clad in a grey Stella McCartney for Adidas top and bright pink tracksuit bottoms. Even without a scrap of make-up she is prettier in person than in pictures.

Settling into a chair in the sunshine, she begins telling me how much she loves Rome and how frustrating it is that she gets so little time to sightsee. She speaks quickly and slightly nervously, in perfect, heavily accented English, punctuated by self-conscious giggles; there is none of the pampered starlet about her. In fact, she seems touchingly innocent and girlish.

At full stretch: last summer Ana won her first Grand Slam title at the French Open

A factor in Ana's groundedness is her close-knit family. Her entourage in Rome includes her mother Dragana, a lawyer, who always accompanies her to tournaments, her fitness and tennis coaches and her adored 17-year-old brother Milos, who has taken a break from his studies to be with her. Her father Miroslav, owner of a small business, is holding down the fort at home in Belgrade.

It is Miroslav who bought a five-year-old Ana her first racket when she caught the tennis bug after seeing fellow Serb Monica Seles playing on TV. 'She just caught my eye,' she recalls. 'I loved her fighting spirit and thought, "I want to do that!" So I wrote down the phone number of a tennis school advertised on TV, showed it to my parents and begged them to sign me up. And they did.'

Training sessions took place in a swimming pool that had been dra! ined and carpeted, and had to be scheduled around Nato air rai! ds.

< p>'My parents were very protective of me and my brother, so they never talked to us about the situation in our country,' Ana explains. 'We were not aware of much to begin with, but I'll never forget when the Nato bombings began [in 1999]. The first night the planes came, I remember going into a neighbour's cellar with lots of other people and seeing an old woman screaming. It was very stressful.

'My parents said, "We aren't doing this again," and from then on we tried to live our lives as normal. Once we were going to my grandparents' house at night, and a bomb hit a building less than one kilometre away. Everything was shaking. It was terrifying.'

'I feel flattered that people like the way I look, but it doesn't help you win points'

Ana has been largely based in Switzerland since her career took off when, at 14, she was 'discovered' by her long-time manager, Swiss! businessman Dan Holzmann. But she considers Belgrade home – even though having a passport from Serbia isn't always straightforward.

'When I was starting out, it was almost impossible for me to get visas to travel to tournaments.'

She hopes that she and the other Serbian tennis players can be ambassadors for their country and counter the idea people have that Serbia – by all accounts, now a stable, prospering, democratic republic – is dangerous.

However, when she was growing up, Ana's parents, though successful middle-class Serbs, were slammed by hyperinflation and struggled to pay her training fees. 'But I think coping with all this has made me more determined. When I first started playing internationally, I saw opportunities that I hadn't seen before, and it made me more hungry and intense about working hard.'

What the majority of the top tennis players have in common is a gritty background story – wheth! er it be Ana, the Williams sisters in the Los Angeles ghetto o! r Maria Sharapova's parents fleeing the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to settle in Siberia. So what hope is there, I ask, for our mollycoddled young talents here in Britain?

'These kids really need to realise that what they have is not normal!' says Ana, who spent two weeks training at the Lawn Tennis Association's National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, Southwest London, last November.

'The facilities in England are just unbelievable. There's everything you could ever imagine. They should feel very lucky and work hard, but I think they are not aware of how rare their setup is, which is too bad.'

One British player who, Ana feels, just might have the requisite 'fighting spirit' is 15-year-old Laura Robson, last year's Wimbledon girls' champion. 'I know Laura,' she smiles.

'She's great. I've seen her play and I really think she has potential. She's very mature for her age and I think she can make it. She just needs to keep working h! ard and gaining experience.'

Ana says her upbringing in Serbia has made her determined to succeed: 'It made me more hungry and intense about working hard'

One major issue for players like Laura, though, is burnout, warns Ana, who, having turned pro a few months before her 16th birthday, knows a thing or two about it.

'There's so much pressure on young players. Often it becomes overwhelming and they can't handle it. I've really struggled with that, because I'm very intense and a perfectionist. Finding a balance is hard.

'My routine is very strict, and it's like living in a bubble when you're at a tournament: you're just preparing for a match, and then, when that match is over, you're preparing for ! the next one, and then the next. It's hard to find time for ho! bbies. B efore, when I would go shopping, I would feel guilty that I wasn't resting or focusing on tennis. But now I see that if something makes me happy, then it's good for my tennis, and that there's nothing wrong with things like going to the cinema.'

Her life sounds terribly grown-up for someone who's just 21. But Ana is adamant that the life of a 'normal' young person has never appealed to her.

'I'm a party pooper,' she says. 'I don't like to drink. My close friends are all people I grew up with in Serbia, many of whom are involved in tennis too. Our idea of fun as teenagers was to play hide and seek after practice. I never saw the point of standing outside a bar with other kids.'

How does Ana relax, then? 'I like to watch Prison Break, Lost and 24. And lately,' she adds, 'I've been a bit hooked on Guitar Hero [a console game in which players simulate guitar-playing].'

She's also learning Spanish and doing a correspondence course in economics ('you never know when it will come in useful'). With all her commitments, Ana gets back to Serbia for only about two weeks a year, but says, 'I love my country. Whenever I get a few days off I go back there to relax. I have a big extended family, so I just spend lots of time with them. I don't go out too much… It can b! e tricky getting recognised.'

Another commitment Ana has! recentl y taken on is her role as an ambassador for Unicef's Schools Without Violence campaign, an initiative to tackle bullying.

'I feel fortunate that I was never bullied myself, but times are different now and kids play more violent video games, see more violence on TV. More than 60 per cent of children are bullied. I feel so fortunate for the doors that tennis has opened for me, and I want to give something back.'

Ana is now the media darling of women's tennis on every continent, so interviews and photo shoots take up an increasing amount of her time.

'In the beginning, it was a bit hard for me to do the media stuff,' she concedes. 'Interviews can be more tiring than practising, but they can also be fun, and
I realise it's an important part of the job.'

How does it feel to have not just her game but also her looks held up for international scrutiny?

Do the constant comparisons with the likes of Sha! rapova and original 'babeski' Anna Kournikova rankle?

'No girl likes to be compared to another,' she sighs. 'Ultimately, what we have in common is that we play tennis. I feel flattered that people like the way I look, but it doesn't help you win points.

'I think the reason there is less rivalry and more friendship on the men's tour is because they don't [have to] deal with this element,' she adds.

Speaking of male players, Ana confirmed last autumn that she was in a relationship with Spanish pro Fernando Verdasco, but the pair split in January. I ask if there is anyone new on the horizon, and this is the only moment when Ana's sunny smile fades. 'I'd really like to leave that aside,' she says briskly. 'I am a very private person, and already so much in the public eye.

'It is very hard to have a relationship as a tennis player,' she muses, 'because you're travelling so much you don't get to see each other. But I do think it's p! ossible, and a few weeks apart can sometimes make things bette! r.'

Hmm… 'But it's personal. I'm sorry.'

Since the split from Verdasco, she has been linked to Aussie golfer Adam Scott, a fellow brand ambassador for Rolex, but that liaison has been strenuously denied by her camp.

Moving on to safer ground, we discuss the topic of Wimbledon and the upcoming grass-court season.

'I love Wimbledon. It is so special. I even love the rain. A real career highlight for me was making the Wimbledon semifinals two years ago, and my big dream is to win it. I think I have the game to do it. I'll just have to take it match by match.'

And should Ana realise her fantasy of lifting the Rosewater Dish, I can imagine no champion more likely to endear herself to the great British public.

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