Ana Ivanovic: Tennis's Next Megastar

By Sean Gregory

Oh, you know those tennis divas. Coddled from childhood. Pushed by their parents to some high-priced academy. Coached day and night. Flights in first class. Bombs sailing by Grandma's front door.

What's that? Well, let's just say Ana Ivanovic, the French Open champion and new top-ranked women's player in the world, had a slightly tougher ride than most tennis pros. Reared in the war-torn Serbia of the 1990s, Ivanovic has risen from her home country's ashes to become the best in the game, the leader of the unlikely Serbian revolution that includes Jelena Jankovic, the second-ranked woman in the world, and Novak Djokovic, No. 3 on the men's side. At 20, Ivanovic has all the assets of a megastar-in-the-making: looks, power and a healthy dose of humility. And with the sport shaken by the surprise retirement of ex-No. 1 Justine Henin, the women's game needs Ana's aces this summer, starting at Wimbledon, which begins June 23. "She's a terrific shot in the arm," says Women's Tennis Association CEO Larry Scott, who has put Ivanovic at the center of the tour's latest marketing campaign.

The 6 ft. 1 in. (1.85 m) chic yet down-to-earth brunette began her trip to the top in front of a Belgrade TV set. She worshipped Monica Seles, to this point Serbia's most famous tennis star. During one Seles match, before Ivanovic had turned 5, she saw a commercial for a local tennis school. She memorized the phone number. "I forced my parents to call and sign me in," says Ivanovic. "My mom was like, 'Maybe you should go to dance school.' I said, 'No, no. I want tennis.'"

At the time, the sport was an afterthought in Serbia. Ivanovic learned the game on a makeshift court at the bottom of an empty swimming pool. Crosscourt shots sent players crashing into the walls. Another tiny challenge for Ivanovic: in 1999 NATO launched air strikes against Belgrade to halt President Slobodan Milosevic's campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. On the first night of bombing, Ivanovic and her family hid in a cellar. "But we had the windows glued, you know," she says, "so they wouldn't go into little pieces." While she was spending time with her grandparents, a bomb exploded less than a mile from their apartment.

She kept playing tennis through the turmoil. "I still remember the rules," she says. "If you start a match and the bombs come, you have to keep playing. But if the danger was there, you wouldn't start new matches." So much for child safety. "It was a risk," says Ivanovic's youth coach, Dejan Vranes, in the understatement of the Grand Slam season. "But people in the city did their jobs. No one hid in their house."

The work--or what some might term insanity--paid off. Ivanovic was a promising but not phenomenal junior player. To fly to tournaments, Ivanovic and her mother Dragana took seven-hour bus trips to the Budapest airport, since there were no flights out of Belgrade. Because of Milosevic's war crimes, Serbians were often viewed with disdain. "We would say we were from Serbia, and people would look at you suspiciously," Ivanovic says. "They would pull you aside, and you could tell from the look in their face that they felt sorry for you. It was very frustrating."

Ivanovic caught a crucial break when a Serbian tennis instructor touted her to one of his clients, a Swiss businessman named Dan Holzmann. Intrigued, Holzmann invited Ivanovic and her mother to his home in Basel, the Swiss city that produced Roger Federer. "We all fell in love with each other," Holzmann says. He made a bet: he would cover Ivanovic's expenses, praying that she could repay him down the line. He hired a coach and paid for Ivanovic's training in Switzerland. Holzmann's bill: $500,000. As soon as Ivanovic signed a four-year, multimillion-dollar deal with Adidas in 2006, she gave Holzmann his money back. He's now her business manager: she'll make at least $10 million this year.

That's because she hits them hard and low, so that opponents can't really control her. She has also improved her fitness. "I don't know how to put this nicely," says Hall of Famer Tracy Austin, "but she weighed more before. She has trimmed down and become quicker." At the French Open, Ivanovic nullified the nerves that brought her down during her two prior Grand Slam finals, last year's French against Henin and this year's Australian Open against Maria Sharapova. "During the match, thoughts would come up--Oh, this is a Grand Slam final," says Ivanovic of the '08 French. "And then I'm like, Oh, no, no, no--don't go that far. Stay in the moment. Stay in the moment. And you know, I managed to do it."

Wimbledon plays to Ivanovic's strengths. The ball moves faster on grass, which will help her monstrous serve. Ivanovic likes playing at the net. Plus, her backhand slice will skid away from opponents on the turf: good luck lunging for it, Ms. Sharapova and Mss. Williams.

Despite the heightened expectations, Ivanovic doesn't seem stressed. She has seen too much to fret about tennis, and she's just enjoying this defining moment of her young career. "I still have to pinch myself to believe it really happened," says Ivanovic. "They were my two biggest goals, winning a Grand Slam and to be No. 1. And I achieved them within a few days. It's unbelievable." Go ahead and believe it.