6/07/2008

Week #22-23: Ana Ivanovic wins Roland Garros and becomes #1

This has been a perfect tournament for Serbian Ana Ivanovic. Not only she has captured her first Grand Slam title, but she also has become new World's number one taking Justine Henin's crown as French Open champion and World's leading player. Unexpected retirement of Justine Henin left an exciting and open competition for the Roland Garros title and the number one in the rankings. As Dinara Safina defeated Maria Sharapova and Svetlana Kuznetsova on her way to the final, the number one was decided in a very emotional semifinal between Serbians Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic. That was the best match of the tournament and Ivanovic took it in the third set. The other part of the draw was plenty of Russians and Dinara Safina was the strongest of them, completing two memorable comebacks against Maria Sharapova and Elena Dementieva after losing the first set, being down in the second and saving match points in both cases, and defeating Svetlana Kuznetsova in the semis. With these premises the final looked exciting, but Ivanovic, who had already played two Grand Slam finals, was very confident after becoming number one while Safina looked tired and suffered some nerves on her first Grand Slam final.
As in any Grand Slam there was a lot of surprises and dissapointments. Positive surprises by Czech Petra Kvitova and Petra Cetkovska who reached the Last 16, quarter finalist Kaia Kanepi and specially Spanish Carla Suarez, who went through the qualy to reach the quarter finals in her first Grand Slam appareance. Dissapointing performances by Serena and Venus Williams who lost in the 3rd round, Anna Chakvetadze and Amelie Mauresmo, who lost in the 2nd round, and Shahar Peer and Marion Bartoli who couldn't win a match.
Doubles title was taken by Spanish pair Anabel Medina and Virginia Ruano. That was the 5th doubles title in Paris for Ruano. They defeated Francesca Schiavone and Casey Dellacqua, who played together for the first time. And young Victoria Azarenka got another Grand Slam title in mixed doubles with American Bob Bryan.

Roland Garros (FRA), Grand Slam, €7,077,680
Singles: Ana Ivanovic (SRB) def Dinara Safina (RUS) 6/4 6/3
Doubles: Medina/Ruano def Dellacqua/Schiavone 2/6 7/5 6/4
Mixed: Azarenka/B.Bryan def Srebotnik/Zimonjic 6/2 7/6

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