Eastbourne: Petrova vs Ivanovic

Ivanovic, answering press questions after her first-round loss to Petrova

It says a lot about what’s happened to Ana Ivanovic’s ranking that she is the player featured on all the posters here but after the loss of most of her 2008 French Open points is ranked too low (13) to be seeded.  Instead, Elena Dementieva is the top seed and Nadia Petrova, ranked 10, is seeded 7. In the first set, Ivanovic simply couldn’t get the ball back into court, while Petrova used her powerful serve and chip returns to good effect to take the set 6-1. In the second, Ivanovic used the advice her new coach gave her during the set break: don’t go for the big shots so early in the rallies. Doing that helped her get her rhythm back, and that was enough to win her the second set 6-4. And level they stayed up until 4-4 in the third set, at which point Ivanovic’s game left again.

“She was hitting the ball better, and I felt I should go for more,” Ivanovic said afterwards. “It was a mistake.” It was: the same errors that plagued her in the first set cost her the last two games and the match, 6-4. Even so, as Ivanovic says, the last two years she hasn’t played any warm-up events before Wimbledon and still managed to make the semis in 2007. I suppose every player always has to think positively, especially when talking to the press, but last year’s Wimbledon is where Ivanovic’s slump started. This year, she’s going in having just fired her coach of three months (the veteran Craig Kardon, who coached Navratilova to her ninth Wimbledon title) and convinced she wants a full-time coach but unsure whom to pick. She will have more match practice, though: she’ll be playing doubles tomorrow.

Of course, there’s no shame in losing to Petrova on grass. Twice a quarterfinalist at Wimbledon and last year’s beaten Eastbourne finalist, Petrova was determined not to lose this match. “It would have been very hard to be out in the first round.” Petrova is also playing doubles here, with Mattek-Sands, who will also be her partner at Wimbledon. “We’re having a good time,” Petrova said. She’s not letting Mattek-Sands pick her clothes, though.

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