Tennis Players Hot Photos: Ana Ivanovic

Friday, 21 October 2011

Ana Ivanovic

Ana Ivanovic Biography

Ana Ivanovic (born November 6, 1987, in Belgrade, Serbia, then Yugoslavia) is a Serbian professional tennis player. She is the current World No. 1 on the WTA Tour.

In 2008, she became the first Serbian and third woman related to Yugoslavia ever to win a Grand Slam singles title (the others being Mima Jaušovec and Mónika Szeles) when she won the French Open, defeating Dinara Safina in the final. She has reached two other Grand Slam finals in her career: at the 2007 French Open (losing to Justine Henin) and the 2008 Australian Open (losing to Maria Sharapova).

Ivanović was born in an ethnic Serbian family. Her mother, Dragana, a lawyer, attends all of her daughter's matches. Ana's father, Miroslav, who is a self-employed businessman, attends as many events as he possibly can. Ana has a younger brother, Miloš, with whom she loves to play basketball. Other hobbies include shopping, watching movies and playing Sudoku. Ivanović's uncle is a former football player. She chooses not to have a permanent coach. Aside from her tennis career, Ivanović also studies finance at a university in Belgrade, and
Spanish in her spare time. One of her uncles lives in Melbourne, Australia. Her inspiration to begin playing was Monica Seles, and she also admires Roger Federer.

On September 8, 2007, Ivanović has become a UNICEF National Ambassador for Serbia, alongside Aleksandar Đorđević and Emir Kusturica. She takes a special interest in the fields of education and child protection. Ivanović visited a primary school in Serbia during her inauguration and said: "I'm also looking forward to going into the classroom and meeting many kids."

Ivanović is a fan of all sport clubs competing under the name of Partizan Belgrade.

Ivanović is friends with former doubles partner Maria Kirilenko, as well as other professional tennis players Daniela Hantuchova, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Sanja Ancic, Rafael Nadal, Tatiana Golovin and fellow Serbians
Novak Djokovic (whom she has known since the age of 5) and Janko Tipsarević.
Ivanović picked up a racket at the age of 5 after watching Monica Seles, a fellow Yugoslavian, at Roland Garros on television. She started her promising career at the age of 5, after memorizing the number of a local tennis clinic from an ad on TV. During her training she encountered the NATO bombings in 1999, where she would have to train in the morning to avoid them. Later on she admitted she would train in an abandoned swimming pool in the winter, as there were no other facilities. When she was 15, Ivanović spent four hours in the locker room crying after a defeat - the first that her new manager had watched - because she thought that Dan Holzmann was going to drop her because she felt that she wasn't good enough to become a professional tennis player. He has stayed as her manager to this day.
Ana Ivanovic