Swimming to Slambodia

Her enchanted voyage to the Roland Garros final began in a swimming pool without water, and very soon the preposterous morphed into the improbable, which soon was transmogrified into the magical. But here she is today, breathless, bountiful and anything but baleful. Ana Ivanovic has a game that shoots out the lights and a smile that lights up the ensuing darkness. Could you hope for better qualities in a finalist in the second Grand Slam of 2007?

I'm going to reverse my usual order today and give you some background first, and return later with an analysis of the semifinal between Ivanovic and Maria Sharapova. Having learned from the suicide pool, I'll save my thoughts on Justine Henin, who bounced Jelena Jankovic out of the other semifinal, 2-2, giving the other emerging Serbian star one more game than Sharapova could snatch from Ivanovic. Ivanovic's story is so compelling that I'm just going to step out of the way and just tell it.

In her presser after today's superb performance, Ana was asked just how hard it was to start the game in relatively impoverished Serbia, a nation with very little tennis tradition to speak of. She replied.

This situation, in terms of tennis development and opportunities, was nearly pathetic; and from there it descended into the horrific.

But at this point, the tragic molted into the inspirational, and the chronology and cast of characters becomes somewhat confusing. As best as I can make out, A Serbian coach who knew of Ana told one of his Swiss clients - one of those men with a $3 million backhand -  about Ana. The client, Dan Holzmann, agreed to have a look at Ana.  It would turn out to be, in Ana's words, "the most important moment of my career."  The Ivanovic's traveled to Basel to meet with Holzmann, an entrepreneur who had done very well with a vitamin business (Juice Plus), and it took Holzmann all of two hours to decide to back and manage young Ana.

Holzmann, a 36-year old Israeli who had spent most of his life in Switzerland started writing checks; Ana started producing results. Holzmann, a tall, gangly man who wears monogrammed shirts and shaves his head, told a group of reporters:

Holzmann's managerial skills proved as valuable as his pen hand. He ultimately negotiated an Adidas contract for Ivanovic; that it took a year to do the deal should tell you something about Holzmann's negotiating skills.  "The most important move for her was to change from Nike to Addidas," he said, "Addidas saw her as the one to beat Sharapova."

Eventually, Holzmann brought Ivanovic to Switzerland (she is now a resident of Basel) and began building a team. Since then, Ivanovic has been coached by a string of mentors, starting with the outspoken pro tour veteran Eric van Harpen ("He changed Ana from a baby into a girl," Holzmann said), through Zoltan Kuharsky and David Taylor, from whom Ivanovic parted after the last Australian Open. But Ivanovic has never responded well to an intense one-on-one coaching relationship, which is where her Adidas connection paid unexpected dividends.

A few years ago, Adidas hired Sven Groenenveld with a novel concept in mind: He would be a coach for all Adidas players who wanted help, particularly those who were without, or between, coaches. I've known Sven for a long time; he had a great run with players as diverse as Mary Pierce and Tommy Haas, but never seemed to like the coach as new best friend forever  paradigm. So he started a tennis consulting company. In taking the Adidas job, he was moving into a personal comfort zone. In February, he started working with Ana more intensively than before.

Sven told me, "The big difference is that I am not getting my paycheck from the player. Even though I've never been fired as a coach, I always felt that you needed a real overview and see when something is working and something is not. I have my freedom, and I have other things to do, so there's probably less pressure on me and the player, too."

That the present situation suits Ana (and who knows if it will continue to satisfy, now that she's made a quantum leap?) underscores her aversion to the kind of intense player-coach relationship that so many players seem to crave. But there are odd if not exactly uncomfortable dimensions to the Adidas concept as well. For instance, even though Justine Henin is also an Adidas player, Sven doesn't work with her (she has her own, full-time, coach Carlos Rodriguez). Yet he's still honor-bound not to coach Ana in the conventional sense for Saturday's final. And, presumably, Ana is honor-bound not to pull Sven aside and ask, "Come on, Sven, give it up! How do I attack that backhand?" He explained:

Eric's thoughts on Ana's run are no less streamlined, although you have to figure that he isn't about to broadcast Ana's strengths and weaknesses as a player to the press any more than to another Adidas player. Of her recent form, he says:

In her presser, Ivanovic echoed her coach's words:

Evaluating his protege, Sven added:

Hey, this girl learned to play tennis in an empty swimming pool. How hard can the rest of it be?

I was still thinking about Ivanovic's story when I went to the Sharapova's presser, and at the end of it I asked her: "Difficult time to ask you this, but you came through a lot of hardship in your career.  So can you relate to these girls, Jankovic and Ivanovic, coming from Serbia, grew up playing in a converted swimming pool, and they all had to leave their country as well.  Does that make you feel any particular affection or respect for them relative to everybody else out there that's come up easier? "

She replied:

Ubaldo Scanagatta returned to the topic in the last question of the presser: "Many of you come from difficult situations when you were young.  I mean, the Serbian girls, you for some reasons, the Williams from where they were born.  And do you think this is the reason why you are all up there in the Top 5, and the Top 6, and the Top 10?  Or you must suffer, let's say, when you're young in order to become a champion?  Or it's a coincidence? "

Her answer:

I think it's safe to say that Ana, and Jelena, would agree.