Ana Ivanović (born November 6, 1987, in Belgrade, SR Serbia, Yugoslavia) is a former World No. 1 Serbian tennis player. As of August 8, 2011, she is ranked World No. 16 on the WTA rankings. She beat Dinara Safina to win the 2008 French Open and was the runner-up in singles at the 2007 French Open and the 2008 Australian Open. Competing as a professional since 2003, she has won 10 WTA Tour singles titles.
Ivanović picked up a racket at the age of five after watching Monica Seles, a fellow Yugoslav, on television. She started her career after memorizing the number of a local tennis clinic from an advertisement. At the time, she was forced to train during the morning to avoid bombardments. Later, she admitted that she trained 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. She thought that Dan Holzmann, the manager in question, would drop her, thinking that she was not good enough to become a professional tennis player. He has stayed her manager to this day.
