Ana Ivanovic may never win another Grand Slam title. She may never recapture her No. 1 ranking or crack the Top 10. She's struggled to find the right coaching combination, wrestled with service inconsistency, battled injury, and through it all she's been mostly spinning her wheels ever since she precociously won the French Open at age 20 and briefly held the WTA's top spot.
Ivanovic, while still just 24, is the closest thing to a Sisyphus in women's tennis, but that only makes me appreciate her even more, because of all the things she's become since she, along with Jelena Jankovic and Novak Djokovic, burst on the scene at Roland Garros during that enchanting Serbian Spring of 2007. In those days, Ivanovic was just another pretty face, albeit a Grand Slam champion. She was the quintessential, anodyne "nice girl" who said and did all the right things, giggled through press conferences, and wore a bow in her hair (and her countrywoman Jankovic was always there to remind us of that).
In the two years after her big '08, Ivanovic elicited sympathy in her tennis-related trials, but often nothing more than an enormous yawn from most anyone who prefers peppery to pepperment personality.
Lately, though, it's become clear that she's matured significantly. Her personality hasn't really changed; she's still the girl every boy's parents would like their son to bring home for dinner. But she seems more aware of the world around her, and appears comfortable speaking her mind in a way many nice girls never end up doing, or are incapable of doing. The Telegraph newspaper in the UK recently published an interview in which Ivanovic made some eye-opening remarks about life in the WTA.
I imagine that these remarks made some women nervous or even angry, given that they compare men and women—to the detriment of the latter. There's nothing earth-shattering about what Ivanovic said; many others have made the same point.
The most startling thing, really, is that the comments were made by Ivanovic—one of the leading girly-girls on the tour, but obviously not one of the leading divas (Can you imagine Maria Sharapova or Serena Williams saying such things?). In spite of all those glam photos, the WTA marketing machine (such as it is), and all the temptations of her station, Ivanovic has developed into quite a down-to-earth lady—although it's more likely that's just what she was all along. It just didn't come through, or it wasn't the message we were looking for.
Let's face it, the media and its enablers at the WTA have chosen to present the sport in a way that works against fostering camaraderie on the tour. The relentless focus on the real or imagined glamor of the tour and it's various individuals (even the tour's designated hausfrau, Kim Clijsters) is more of a divider than bonding agent. It's like that in any "star" system, and that's just what the WTA has created despite its parallel attempt to embrace social promotion for all. I think Billie Jean King and other tennis-first women understand this but mostly keep their mouths shut because they know that WTA is trying to sell a product, and not all sales pitches are created equal.
Most of you are familiar with the theory of the Big Lie, which is that if you say something often enough and loud enough, large numbers of people will assume it true. It works that way in many areas of life. Immersing yourself in tennis, it's hard to avoid frequent references to the divas and prima donnas, and that helps shape not just your thinking, but theirs as well. How many young tennis-playing girls want to be stars, or assume that they will be stars when they act like stars? Like divas. It's unlikely the WTA locker room will become a less status and power-conscious place any time soon.
Ivanovic seems to have escaped the gravitational pull of diva-hood. She wasn't the first, or last, but it's good to be reminded that it can be done. A cynic might suggest that she didn't become a diva because her results and ranking stripped her of the fleeting opportunity, but I don't buy that. I think Ivanovic is just naturally a decent and honest person, and smarter than we've thought. A nice girl, winning the battle of adulthood more decisively than she's winning the skirmishes that define her tennis career. And she's a reminder of something very important in this sport, that it's a mistake to prematurely judge the young.
