2011 Hopman Cup: Review Session 2 – Ana Ivanovic vs. Yaroslava Shvedova
The 2011 Hopman Cup continued in Perth on Sunday when top seeds Serbia met Kazakhstan for the second session of the event. The Hopman Cup is the International Tennis Federation’s (ITF) version of the Davis Cup and Fed Cup, which
kicks off the new season on the ITF circuit.
Session one on New Year’s Day saw Australians Lleyton Hewitt and Alicia Molik capitalizing on their home court advantage to enjoy a 2-1 win against third seeded Belgians Justine Henin and Ruben Bemelmans.
Session two had Serbians Novak Djokovic and Ana Ivanovic pitted against Kazakhs Yaroslava Shvedova and Andrey Golubev. Kicking off play for the day was a singles match between Shvedova and Ivanovic.
This is Shvedova’s second straight year participating at the event. Although ranked 39 in the world in the singles rankings, Shvedova’s doubles rankings enjoyed an all time high of 7 in 2010. Although she failed to win any singles
titles for the year, she did put in a career best performance at a Grand Slam event making it to the quarterfinals of the 2010 Roland Garros. However, she did manage to bag several doubles crowns in the year; winning them at Wimbledon and at the United States
Open. She also put in final appearances at the UNICEF Open and the Marbella event. She also made it to the finals of the mixed doubles category at the Roland Garros partnering Julian Knowles.
Partnering Djokovic, Ivanovic is appearing for the second time at the event having done so once in 2006. A former world number one in 2008, Ivanovic has fallen from grace since then. Given her disappointing performance in 2009,
she entered 2010 ranked twentieth in the world. She slipped out of the Top 50 on account of her losing streak between February and March. After making if to the fourth round of the US Open, quarterfinals of the 2010 China Open and the 2010 BGL Luxembourg Open,
Ivanovic began her climb back into the Top 20. Securing wins at Linz and Bali, she finished the season ranked 17th in the world.
Their only 2010 meeting came at the Cincinnati event where Ivanovic defeated Shvedova to level the head-to-head score between them. Earlier, they had met in 2007 at Miami where the Kazakh had won over the Serb.
Although struggling early into her clash with Shvedova today, Ivanovic eventually emerged victorious after eighty-three minutes with four aces and four double faults. With the Kazakh following closely at her heels in the opener,
the first set was forced into a tiebreak. Ivanovic raced into a two-point lead and maintained it until the end to clinch the tiebreaker 8-6. Entering into the second set, she swiftly did away with the Kazakh in a breadstick (6-1) win.
Excited about her win against Shvedova, Ivanovic said, "It was so hard for us to hold serve in the first set, but I was just happy I managed to close it out in the tie-break because it was a close one. I actually managed to get
my serve a little better in the tie-breaker and then in the second set. It was just good to go out there, keep moving and have that pressure of a match again. In the second set it was good and I was being a lot more aggressive, but in the first set I was very
passive and playing lots of balls short. I tried to change that in the second set, and it got better."
Ivanovic next plays Molik on Tuesday when Serbia meets Australia while Shvedova plays Henin on the same day for Kazakhstan versus Belgium.
Tags: