On a Wet Day, Jankovic Cruises to Semifinals With Loud Upset
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Even on a day mostly washed out by rain, one can count on Jelena Jankovic for some good cheer.
The voluble Jankovic, a 21-year-old from Serbia, became the first, and only, semifinalist at the U.S. Open yesterday when she drubbed Elena Dementieva 6-2, 6-1 before the all-too-familiar wetness returned.
Jankovic has won over her peers with her personality — “She likes to laugh; she’s very loud,” Dementieva said — yet for much of this year, she couldn’t beat any of them on the tennis court. After winning her first match of the season at the Australian Open, she lost and lost again, 10 straight times, nine of them in the first round. She needed more than two months to recover from a virus, and her confidence dipped with each defeat. So low did Jankovic sink that she considered quitting tennis and making her university studies a full-time job.
“I didn’t have the will to practice, didn’t want to play,” she said. “It was something that I never felt before, and I almost quit playing tennis.”
Her mother, Snezana, helped her turn her season around. In Rome, mother and daughter traveled together, and Jankovic won three matches before losing to Venus Williams in the quarterfinals. She reached the fourth round at Wimbledon, and the final this summer in Los Angeles, where she lost to Dementieva in three sets. Dementieva’s fluttering, slicing serve troubled Jankovic in that much, but yesterday the Russian, a finalist here in 2004 and a semifinalist last year, did not hold her serve once.
“It’s a lot slower than the other players,” Jankovic said. “But now I got used to it somehow.”
Jankovic’s brand of candor and humor is not common on the women’s tour, and neither is her résumé. She began playing tennis at age 9 1/2, rather late for a top professional. By the time she was 16, she was the best junior in the world. And unlike her colleagues, she is as committed to being a student as a professional athlete.
“I don’t want to be a typical tennis player who knows how to hit the forehand and a backhand, that’s all,” she said. “I think this career is quite short and I think there is life after tennis, as well, and I need to look after my future.”
Even if she doesn’t win her first Grand Slam title in Flushing this week, Jankovic clearly has a lot to look forward to.
