NO MATCH involving Jelena Jankovic is complete without a medical drama of some description. Like an extra in ER, the Serb is prone to a spot of overacting and never feels secure unless she has a doctor at her side.
Yesterday was no exception as Jankovic swooned and staggered her way to a 6-7, 7-5, 6-2 defeat at the hands of 17-year-old Melanie Oudin.
At the end of the first set, she called for the doctor and the trainer as she appeared to be overcome by the
heat. For more than ten minutes, she lay flat on her back as the medics took her blood pressure, checked her pulse, took her temperature and covered her in ice packs. But then, Lazarus-like, she rose to fight again and kept at it for another one hour and 45 minutes before giving into her young American rival. It has been that sort of year for Jankovic.
Like Dinara Safina, Jankovic smarts at the thought she has never won a grand slam. True, she ended last year as the world No.1 but she did not have major piece of silverware to go with it and that hurt. It still does.
In order to give herself an extra edge, the Serb started working with Pat Etcheberry, the fitness guru who helped turn Justine Henin into the Mighty Atom and a serial winner of grand slam titles. Where most women dread gaining extra weight over Christmas, Jankovic did everything in her power to pile on the pounds. She tried running at altitude to give herself more aerobic stamina and she ate and trained with the sole intent of bulking up.
Arriving in Australia for the Open, she was visibly bigger but, unfortunately, obviously struggling.
"I believed it was going to be the right things for me: to be bigger, to get stronger, to be more fit," she said. "I have an athletic body and, for me, I put on a little bit of muscle mass and I looked bigger. For me, it didn't feel right. I wasn't used to that body and I felt very slow and had no reactions and my whole game broke down."
At the same time, Jankovic's mother, Snezana, fell ill and suddenly tennis did not seem so important . Snezana is a constant figure at the courtside as Jankovic travels the world and without her presence, the Serb was distracted. As she lost in the first rounds of both Indian Wells and Miami, her ranking started to slide and from being the best player in the world, she is now down to No.6. Fortunately, Snezana has made a full recovery and her daughter is free to focus on tennis again, but that couple of months of worrying and fretting taught Jankovic a valuable lesson.
"We all have ups and downs in our careers," she said, "and not just in sport – in life in general people feel they have good periods and have bad periods as well. But those times when you fall down, you reach bad periods – these times are when you become stronger, when you grow as a person, when you learn a lot more things than when you're doing well."
With that thought in mind, she began the slow and steady climb back to something resembling her best. Where 12 months earlier, she may have expected to pick up at least one clay court title, this year she trudged round the spring circuit and made do with quarter-final finishes in Rome and Madrid and the fourth round at Roland Garros. It was not great but gradually she was starting to feel more like her old self.
"I lost the muscle and I lost the heavy feeling," I'm moving much better now and my game is getting back. But I feel that as one of the top players, I haven't still reached my full potential. This is something that I would like to achieve one day, to reach my limit, and then I can say 'this is the best I can be and I have used and done everything possible to come to this position and I cannot go any more'. When that day will come, then I will understand myself and then I can say ' this is my limit'. I have to just stay strong and not put myself down and just to be positive. Keep moving forward. Keep learning. We learn as long as we are alive and that's what I can live on. This is the reality."
Grass and Wimbledon is not her happiest hunting ground but at least she knows that she is making progress. The loss yesterday will sting for a while but with the American hard court season to look forward to, Jankovic is hoping she will be ready to move forward again.
The full article contains 819 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
