Interview: Ana Ivanovic

"Partying and drinking were never my thing"

She is wearing skinny jeans, a bitter-chocolate leather jacket and a cream silk scarf. In conversation, as on court, she covers a lot of ground quickly. No sooner has she dispatched the subject of Robbie Williams than she is happily lobbing George Clooney into the conversation and skilfully volleying the topic of Slobodan Milosevic back over the net


Age: 20
Ranking: 4
Career highlight: Beating Maria Sharapova to reach her first grand slam final at the 2007 French Open
Biggest disappointment: Having to pull out of the WTA's Rome tournament last year with a knee injury
Look out for: Her strength from the baseline and upcoming appearances as a Unicef ambassador


Taking an early evening constitutional along the western shore of Lake Zurich, Serbian tennis star Ana Ivanovic is talking, 19 to the dozen, about the curious world she inhabits. Even the swans turn their heads the better to catch this 6ft 1in peach-skinned girl as she walks, and talks, and sips her large Starbucks takeaway. Then talks some more.

She is wearing skinny jeans, a bitter-chocolate leather jacket and a cream silk scarf. In conversation, as on court, she covers a lot of ground quickly. No sooner has she dispatched the subject of Robbie Williams than she is happily lobbing George Clooney into the conversation and skilfully volleying the topic of Slobodan Milosevic back over the net.

As we head up Zurich's old cobbled streets, she is talking about travel, which, as a professional tennis player, takes up 90 per cent of her time. 'I live in a suitcase,' she says, but you know what she means.

Ivanovic reels off the matches played and the countries visited in the past year alone, and you cannot begin to calculate the air miles and the WTA kudos she has accumulated. There was the Australian Open (she reached the third round), French Open (she lost the final to Justine Henin), Wimbledon (memorably beaten in the semis by Venus Williams) and the US Open (knocked out, fourth round, that Williams woman again).

Meanwhile, without so much as a sip of barley water, she was also off to the Tier I events. 'Tokyo, Miami, Berlin, Rome, San Diego, Toronto, Moscow,' she says in a resigned sing-song.

By the time we have meandered back towards Starbucks (she needs refuelling), it has been made plain that no matter how moneyed, mollycoddled and media-massaged these tennis princesses may be, most of them put in more court appearances per year than Pete Doherty.

Does your personality change once you're on court?
I'm more aggressive. It has to happen because if you're too soft you're going to lose. I'm very easy-going off court, but I really want to win once I'm walking on to the court.

At that moment, do you hate your opponent?
I try not to think about the person, just their tactics, their weaknesses and strengths. I play against the ball. It doesn't really matter who you're playing at that point.

Even if you're facing one of the Williams sisters?
That's a little harder. They play very aggressively.

Are you a bad loser?
Very bad. Even if I play backgammon with my coach I hate to lose. I won't talk to him for, like, an hour. So imagine how it feels when you lose at tennis. That makes me determined not to lose because I hate it so much. Even at a set down and match point I always believe I can come back.

But sometimes you must know it won't happen...
Sometimes. In Australia against [Vera] Zvonareva, I was 6-2, 5-1 and 40-0 down and I was thinking: 'Nothing's going my way today.' And when you're having a bad day, there are normally a lot of people watching, so it's sort of embarrassing.

What do you do half an hour before a big match?
I like to be alone and listen to music. Every match I play, I have a tune in my head over and over. It might only be a few words or a small piece of the tune, but it can drive you mad.

Can your mind drift during matches?
It's not always possible to concentrate completely, so you'll find yourself thinking about something someone said earlier. That's when you have to pinch yourself and get back to what's happening on the court.

Have you ever cheated?
No. Actually, I did once. I was a junior and there was no referee and I played against this Russian girl and she cheated so badly. She was calling balls out that were a metre inside the line. I was so angry, I thought: 'Every time she cheats, I'm going to cheat her back.' So I did.

Earlier this afternoon, Ivanovic made a fleeting appearance on the sports floor of an upmarket (this is Switzerland, they don't do downmarket) department store. As a resident of Basel, she is treated as a local in Zurich. Her approachability is appreciated and fans cluster around as she dispenses multilingual goodwill and free Adidas T-shirts.

Ivanovic's sponsorship deal with the sportswear giant was engineered - like her entire career - by her manager, Dan Holzmann, a Swiss-based German entrepreneur, who took on Ana when she was 14. He needed only two hours before deciding to invest the half a million dollars it would take to groom the naturally gifted girl. Within 18 months of her 2003 pro debut, Ivanovic had paid this seed money back. Holzmann continues to negotiate shrewdly - with Adidas, Wilson, Aqua Viva and Verano Motors - on his charge's behalf. With her global marketability and his business acumen, they make an enviably winning team.

Having remained unmolested for the duration of her lakeside date, Ivanovic is spotted by a few youths. They blush and jostle and, much like your reporter, ask her random questions that she claims to enjoy more than talking tennis tactics. 'Get it over the net and between the lines,' she says of her complex technical game. 'At the end of the day it's really that simple.'

Do you remember the war starting in Serbia?
No, I was too young, but I remember the bombing in 1999 [by Nato, during the Kosovo War]. That was something I'll never forget - the biggest shock of my life. My parents tried to keep it away from us, they wouldn't talk about it or put the news on. But schools were shut, nobody went to work, everything stopped. It was a bit scary, but people really stayed together and protected each other.

Describe your bedroom as a child.
When I was very young I shared my bedroom with my brother. He's four years younger than me. Later we had separate rooms. Mine was apricot-coloured - nice, eh? I was so happy because I had a TV in my room. I wasn't crazy about putting posters up of movies stars or singers. I only really loved Monica Seles - I so was obsessed.

Your parents must have found your tennis obsession strange...
Yes, firstly because I was such a clumsy kid. I couldn't run without knocking something over. Then I wanted to play tennis and no one in my family knew anything about tennis. Looking back, I really don't know what attracted me to it, but I still have a video of my first-ever practice, when I was five. Watching it now, there was a little bit of talent there; I could hit the ball.

Do you feel that you missed out on a normal teenage life?
Not really - I never liked going out to parties. Partying and drinking were never my thing.

Do you cry easily?
I'm quite an emotional person. I cry a lot. I do not like conflict, so if I have an argument with my parents I'll often cry. I become too emotional. I cried after I lost in the Stuttgart Open. Another bad day for me and she [Tatiana Golovin] played better than me. But there'll be plenty more opportunities.

The world's fourth-ranked woman tennis player insists on buying and fetching the foamy mugs of ubiquity from the Starbucks counter. 'I just love these places,' she says without a hint of irony, and if you were 20 years old and had gone from war-torn Serbia to itinerant tennis ace, you might feel the same.

Ivanovic is a wealthy woman these days - she won more than $3m in 2007 alone. She wears Armani Code perfume, goes on regular frock-shopping raids with her lawyer mother (dad, handily, is an economist) and invests her sponsorship millions on the advice of top European businessmen.

Tall, beautiful, talented, minted. That's it, she's getting the next coffee, too...

Your website is among the most-visited of any female athlete. Which do you visit most often?
I shouldn't say Lime Wire [a music-sharing site], should I? I go to iTunes! And YouTube is always interesting. You can find anything on YouTube.

Who, to your mind, is the most attractive woman on the tennis circuit?
[Laughs] It's hard to say for a girl but... [Maria] Kirilenko. She's quite attractive.

Are women attracted to you?
Oh my God, I've had a few uncomfortable experiences but I'm so allergic to that. I just can't... even now when I see my friends and they just want to kiss the cheek. I prefer men.

Do you prefer men to be philosophical or funny?
I like men who are thoughtful, but overall I would prefer them to be funny.

Here's a funny but slightly philosophical joke: no matter how good you get at tennis, you'll never be better than a wall.
A war? Oh, a wall. Yes, that's funny.

Could you ever date a short man?
I know you should say it's about the person inside, but probably not. I'm tall and it's too difficult.

Why don't you just marry Novak Djokovic and have unbeatable tennis babies?
[Laughs] We're still so young. We're both just 20. We have many more years in front of us yet.

Are all Serbians good-looking?
As a people, Serbians are very tall, and we have olive skin and dark hair, which can look very nice. You have to be very beautiful to stand out.

Would you ever play tennis drunk for fun?
No, I've never done anything drunk. I'm an in-control person. I was tipsy a few times but I can't drink. I told you, I'm a real party-pooper.

Can what you wear affect your game?
It really can. You'll be wearing a dress you don't feel comfortable in or you'll think: 'These shorts keep coming down all the time!' You lose focus if you think your shorts are falling down.

Are you able to jump the net?
No, I'm not. I should learn.

You may need to do that at Wimbledon this year. Is there anything you wouldn't do in order to win Wimbledon?
Oh, I'd do so much that you can't imagine - as long as it wasn't really bad.

Sell your soul?
No, I need that.

Your grandparents?
I love, love, love my grandparents.

Eat a dog?
Eat a dog?! No, nothing that crazy. And I wouldn't do something like jump in the Thames naked. I'm just not that type of person. But you probably understand that by now.

A church bell sounds six. It comes from an elegant clocktower with a wide, round face. Standing beneath the steeple, like its human embodiment, Ana Ivanovic watches the young couples drift by in the fading sunlight. 'I'll have a family and live in my own home one day,' she says without emotion. 'But that's for the future.'


(Published: 10.01.2008.)

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