Ana Ivanovic has announced on her website that she has split with her coach of only three months, Craig Kardon. This is a very short appointment for Kardon who has previously coached 18 time Grand Slam champion Martina Navratilova.
Ivanovic has seen a slide in her ranking ever since she reached the number one spot for a short time last year. Currently Ivanovic is ranked 13th in the world after she lost a whole load of points from her French Open performance.
While searching for a new coach, she will use temporary coaches for Eastbourne and Wimbledon later this month.
Marin Cilic is a young player from Croatia who currently finds himself at number 14 in the world singles rankings. Marin has had a very quick rise to the top. He was playing junior tennis up until 2006 in which he then received his highest ranking of the world number one junior. While at the same time as holding this junior ranking Marin was also trying to build up a senior career and as many points as possible.
After moving away from junior tennis in 2006 Marin focused on building up as many points as possible on the ATP and ITF tours so that he could really make a living from tennis and live up to his potential. Within his first season on the ITF tour he finished 2006 ranked 173 in the world. This season really pushed his career and pretty much put him where he is today. At the start of 2006 Marin was receiving a lot of wildcards into major tournaments in which he would not have received unless he was the top junior in the world, and he made the most of it. Following in 2007 Marin continued his rise to finish the year at 71 and to now be on the ATP tour fulltime. Finally the growth continued even further to finish 2008 at number 22 and top be now a top player who everyone else wants to beat.
It is amazing how Marin Cilic has risen in the world of tennis and this has really been a steady growth from the age of 16. Marin is now a top 20 player in the world who no matter what tournament he plays is seeded. Im a firm believer that when a player progresses from juniors to seniors they deserve a few wildcards in major tournaments to help them get experience and raise their rankings fast at the same time. However, at the same time the player needs to keep his eye on the ball and actually get strong results on the ITF tours, cause that is really where you learn as a player to fight for every point and every match.
Dinara Safina is now officially the womens world number one tennis player. On Monday Dinara Safina has now joined the group of world number one tennis players. Dinara and Marat as the only brother and sister combination to have every been both world number one.
Safina is still yet to win a Grand Slam title but she has twice reached the final. Dinara Safina is the 19th woman to top the rankings since they were introduced in 1975.
Safina won four titles last year, but lost to Serena Williams at the Australian Open this year, who she replaced as world number one.
It is good to see however that Dinara is still in search of more and more titles.
“He has two Grand Slams,” Safina said of her brother in a video posted on the WTA’s Web site. “He’s still much better than me, so I have to catch him.”
The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour has released the official 2008 season-ending tennis rankings.
Jelena Jankovic has ended the tennis year as the number one tennis player in the world, followed by Serena Williams, Dinara Safina, Elena Dementieva, and Ana Ivanovic.
2007 POINTS DROPPED ON NOVEMBER 10: Madrid (SEC)
Top 20 Rankings (November 10, 2008)
1. Jelena Jankovic – Serbia – 4710
2. Serena Williams – United States – 3866
3. Dinara Safina – Russia – 3817
4. Elena Dementieva – Russia – 3663
5. Ana Ivanovic – Serbia – 3457
6. Venus Williams – United States – 3272
7. Vera Zvonareva – Russia – 2952
8. Svetlana Kuznetsova – Russia – 2726
9. Maria Sharapova – Russia – 2515
10. Agnieszka Radwanska – Poland – 2286
11. Nadia Petrova – Russia – 1976
12. Caroline Wozniacki – Denmark – 1678
13. Flavia Pennetta – Italy – 1670
14. Patty Schnyder – Switzerland – 1590
15. Victoria Azarenka – Belarus – 1494
16. Alize Cornet – France – 1492
17. Marion Bartoli – France – 1410
18. Anna Chakvetadze – Russia – 1363
19. Dominika Cibulkova – Slovakia – 1337
20. Katarina Srebotnik – Slovakia – 1272
SONY ERICSSON WTA TOUR RANKINGS
The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Rankings is the worldwide computer ranking for women’s professional tennis.
The ranking system is a 52-week, cumulative system in which the number of Tournament results that comprise a player’s ranking is capped at 17 Tournament results for Singles and 11 Tournament results for Doubles.
The results used to determine a player’s ranking are the Tournaments yielding the player’s highest Ranking points over the past 52 weeks.
