Ana Ivanovic insisted she was heading in the right direction under new coach Heinz Gunthardt, despite her miserable grand slam run continuing as she crashed out of the French Open
Ana Ivanovic insisted she was heading in the right direction under new coach Heinz Gunthardt, despite her miserable grand slam run continuing as she crashed out of the French Open.
The 2008 champion was sent packing barely an hour after play finally got under way at rain-blighted Roland Garros.
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| Ah-na! Serbian Ana Ivanovic reacts after losing a point to Russian Alisa Kleybanova during a second round match of the French Open at Roland Garros in Paris yesterday. Ivanovic lost 3-6, 0-6. pics/afp, Getty images |
The opening four-and-a-half hours of day five were wiped out by rain but the weather seemingly only delayed the inevitable, as former World No 1 Ivanovic was crushed 3-6, 0-6 in the second round by number 28 seed Alisa Kleybanova.
Ivanovic (22) was not seeded for Roland Garros after falling to 42nd in the rankings and extended a sequence that has seen her fail to get past the fourth round of a major since lifting the title on Philippe Chatrier two years ago.
Yesterday witnessed another error-strewn performance from the Serbian, who dropped serve five times in total, giving her opponent an easy passage to a third-round match against Yaroslava Shvedova, who stunned eighth seed Agnieszka Radwanska.
Ivanovic began working with Gunthardt -- who helped make Steffi Graf one of the greatest female players of all time -- back in February.
She said: "It's going very well, I'm really happy. Heinz is a great coach.
"We started in February, improvements in my game have been really big and very visible.
"Everything is going well. I'm really happy with the improvements we made and the things we want to work on."
Ivanovic won the opening two games today before losing 11 of the next 12, but she was adamant she had not played that badly.
"It was just very hard, because, many important points, she played really, really well," she added.
"I didn't think I did too much wrong out there. I was also a little bit unlucky with so many line calls on my serve and just everything going out."
Fellow Serb, fourth seed Jelena Jankovic, avoided following her compatriot home after beating Kaia Kanepi 6-2, 3-6, 6-4.
