JELENA Jankovic believes she is worthy of her place as the world's best player despite not having won a grand slam.
The 23-year-old Serbian finished 2008 as world No1 thanks to an impressively consistent season that saw her emerge victorious in 65 of her 84 matches and included a maiden grand slam final at the US Open and last-four appearances at the Australian an
d French Opens, alongside four WTA titles.
However, Jankovic is yet to capture one of tennis' ultimate prizes, meaning she is the first player in WTA history to top the rankings without a grand slam to her name. While underlining her main aim this season is to rectify that statistic, beginning with the Australian Open this month, she rejected suggestions it devalues her current status.
"I don't really have to prove anything to anybody," Jankovic said. "I play tennis because I love to play. I want to achieve my goals and one of my goals was to become number one and to finish the year as number one in the world was a huge achievement; I'm only the ninth player to do that.
"My priority for this year is to win a grand slam. I have worked very hard so I really hope for the best. My dream is to win all four of them, but will that happen? We will see. I will try my best – that's all I can do. All of them are special. Whichever one comes first I don't mind because it's a great accomplishment."
Fellow Serbians Novak Djokovic and Ana Ivanovic both made breakthroughs last season, capturing the Australian and French titles respectively, but Jankovic does not feel overshadowed by her compatriots.
"I don't put any pressure on myself and I don't look at what other players do," she added. "At the end of the day, it's what I do and how much I can achieve because when I finish my career it's what I have achieved and not what other people have done."
Jankovic is in Hong Kong to play the JB Classic, her only warm-up event before the Australian Open gets under way on 19 January. She enters 2009 in the best shape of her career following a gruelling off-season fitness regime that took in altitude training in Mexico, and is hopeful it will help put an end to injury problems that dogged her at times last year.
"I've never been as fit as I am now and I've never worked so hard in the off-season," she continued. "Some of the things I've done, I never thought I could do.
"I was reaching my limit and I think that gives me a lot more confidence.
It gives me a lot more confidence because I know I've worked very hard, bringing my fitness to where I want to be."
The full article contains 482 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
