Serbs primed for golden battle

By Barnaby Chesterman

BEIJING

Aug. 8: Serbian pair Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic will lead the chase to succeed the now retired Justine Henin as Olympic champion when the tennis competition begins in Beijing on Sunday.

Ivanovic is the top seed and current world number one but her poor form since winning the French Open in May means that compatriot and second seed Jankovic will be the new number one as of Monday.

However Jankovic’s hopes have been hit by a knee cartilage injury she picked up at Wimbledon in June and the current number two is struggling to battle back to match fitness.

Like her teammate she has been far from top form since reaching the Roland Garros semifinals — where she lost to Ivanovic in three sets — but since then she has bowed out earlier than expected at Wimbledon and Montreal, although she did reach the semi-finals in Los Angeles.

Jankovic, though, can look to the easiest draw on paper as she opens her campaign against Zimbabwe’s Cara Black, currently ranked 658 in the world.

That should be the perfect way for Jankovic to start playing her way back to full fitness.

"I really want to play one match at a time, I don’t want to look too far ahead," she said.

"I want to see how things go. I’m improving. I played in LA and Montreal but I could see that I wasn’t prepared, I had some issues with physical strength where I’m not as good as I used to be."

If Jankovic is to achieve her dream of winning the Olympics and honouring her position as the new top player in the world she is going to have to find her condition quickly as perilous challenges lie ahead.

Not least is her slated quarterfinal opponent, Russian Dinara Safina, the world number seven and recent winner of back-to-back titles in LA and Montreal.

She is probably the tour’s most improved player this year having also reached the French Open final and won on the clay in Berlin, beating Henin along the way and prompting the little Belgian to announce her retirement days later.

Safina begins against Italy’s Mara Santangelo and would have been scheduled to face 1996 winner Lindsay Davenport in the second round.

However, the veteran American pulled out of the singles on Friday because of a knee injury.

Ivanovic, whose form has been poor since Roland Garros, has a relatively comfortable start against Ukraine’s Mariya Koryttseva but if things go to the formbook she should meet American Serena Williams, who begins against Olga Govortsova of Belarus, in the semifinals.

Wimbledon champion Venus Williams faces Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky in the first round and could come up against India’s Sania Mirza in her second match.

Chinese number one and Wimbledon semifinalist Zheng Jie possibly holds the hosts best chances of success but she drew 11th seed Agnes Szavay of Hungary in the first round.

— AFP