The 20-year-old from Belgrade has reached the final in two of the last four women's majors and is hungry to build on the career-best season she delivered last year. “I like to set goals for myself and the biggest area which I have to improve is to become more consistent,” Ivanovic said. “I need to make my game more balanced between my unforced errors and my winners. It's something I've been working on and, once I have achieved that, I have a great potential to win a Grand Slam.”
The Serb said she felt like a different player from the one that lost to Russia's Maria Sharapova in the Australian Open final in January. “I have changed my racquet, I have worked a lot of on my footwork and I am trying to be more aggressive,” she added. “I feel I've improved in all those areas and I am looking forward to the challenge of putting that into operation in competition.” Ivanovic rocketed to number four in the world rankings at the end of last year after reaching her first grand slam final at the French Open and winning WTA titles in Berlin, Los Angeles and Luxembourg. Although she was crushed 6-1, 6-2 by Belgium's Justine Henin in the Roland Garros final, she believes she learned from every on-court experience she had last year — both good or bad.
“Winning titles and beating lots of top-10 players gave me so much confidence,” she said. “It's also something which makes me want to work harder to achieve even bigger success this year.” Ivanovic twice had the opportunity to become the first Serb to win a grand slam title, an honour eventually claimed by Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open. “That would have been amazing. I was twice so close to it,” she said. “As a kid I used to dream of winning Grand Slam titles but I didn't really know what it takes or how it's going to be. Having gone so far in a grand slam, I was so wishing I could win it to bring it back home and make Serbia even more proud.”
Ivanovic had to withdraw from the third round of last month's Qatar Open because of an ankle sprain but has made a full recovery. “I have had a lot of recovery and treatment and my physio has done a great job. I am really happy to be back,” she added.
