Ana Ivanovic reached the first Grand Slam singles finals, taking on Justine Henin, the semifinals of Wimbledon and then the Women’s Tennis Association Tour Championships in 2007. Although, the Serb beauty has just lost to Maria Sharapova in 2008 Australian Open, she got tremendous applause from the tennis fans.

 

2004 – Professional debut
She stunned the world when she advanced to the final of the Junior Wimbledon tournament in 2004, though she lost to Ukrainian Kateryna Bondarenko. She caught the attention of the tennis world again when she played against American powerhouse Venus Williams to two tie breaks and she did many set points before losing in Zurich Open in the second round.

 

 

2005 – Maiden title
Ana finally made it to win her first career singles title in Canberra Australia by beating Hungarian Melinda Czink. The current world’s second seed continued pushing up her ranking after she defeated then-top ten players Svetlana Kuznetsova, Nadia Petrova and Vera Zvonareva. She lost to French Amelie Mauresmo in the 2005 Australian Open before she took a huge revenge over the local favorite in the 2005 French Open. Later, she joined the Zurich Open and Linz before ending the year being ranked 16th.

 

2006 – Solid season

Ana kicked off 2006 with the Hopman Cup which she played along with her fellow Novak Djokovic. She started 2006 WTA by playing in Sydney and again she beat Amelie Mauresmo from France before losing in the quarterfinals to Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova. She advanced to the Round of 16 at Wimbledon but was finally defeated to French champion Amelie Mauresmo. The sexy Serb made another breakthrough in the final of Canada Masters in August when she crashed former World No1 and the queen of tennis Martina Hingis 6-2, 6-3. She ended up 2006 with her great ranking at 14th.

 

2007 – Top 5 debut
She progressed to her third career final at the Tier I Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo, winning over her compatriot Jelena Jankovic in the quarterfinals and in the semifinals she defeated Maria Sharapova before losing to Martina Hingis. She was impelled into the best ten women in the world at number 8 after she reached the final at the Qatar Telecom German Open in Berlin but she withdrew due to ankle injury. She attempt to win her first Grand Slam title and climb up to the top 3. She beat World No 3 Svetlana Kuznetsona and then defeated then-World No 2 Maria Sharapova before losing to the powerhouse and three-time winner Justine Henin. Ana was ranked at 4th after she won her fourth singles titles, defeating Russian Nadia Petrova in the final. Her fifth career title came when she beat Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova at the WTA Tour Championships.

 

2008
Ana started 2008 by playing in an exhibition tournament in Hong Kong and she was seeded first, however, she lost to Elena Dementieva from Russian in the quarterfinals. She was pushed up to the top ten after participating the Sydney Medibank International, beating Frenchwoman Virginia Razzano and Slovenian Katarina Srebotnik before losing to Justine Henin in the semifinals. The latest tournament was Australian Open where she was seeded fourth, she crashed Venus Williams for the first time and advanced to the semifinals, winning over Daniela Hantuchova. However, she lost to Maria Sharapova in the ‘War of two angels” in the Grand Slam final. She’s now ranked at number 2, the best ranking ever of her career.