Ana Ivanovic was the brighter star as she lit up Stadium 2 at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells with some clever tennis and clinical execution to defeat the defending champion in straight sets. Ivanovic’s victory further defined the week as the place where former world no.1 players started to stitch together their comeback stories.
She was joined in the last eight by Maria Sharapova, who prevailed in another battle of ex-world no.1s, coasting past Dinara Safina in just over an hour to indicate that the Moscovite still has plenty of hard miles to put in before she can reclaim her former glory. The current world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki was made to sweat and toil to earn a hard fought come from behind 26 63 61 victory over Alisa Kleybanova.
Her main rival Kim Clijsters was laid low by an injured shoulder leaving the Dane safely perched on the top of the rankings, at least for the next two weeks. Clijsters was leading Marion Bartoli 61 13 when she decided it was enough, mostly to prevent aggravating her strained muscle.
Ivanovic appeared to be the better organised of the two, building up her points to create an opportunity to kill them on her stronger forehand side. While Ivanovic was steady off her weaker backhand flank, she was very successful in avoiding being punished by the fearsome backhand power of Jankovic.The world No.21 made a strong start, breaking Jankovic with a backhand down the line winner to set the tone for a dominant performance. With Ivanovic playing steady tennis from the back of the court, Jankovic needed to win more than the 51% points she won on serve. The defending champion could save only 3 of the 7 break points she faced, as Ivanovic eclipsed her 64 62 in an hour and 24 minutes.
“I'm really happy about that, because she's tough opponent and she's been playing well lately,” Ivanovic said. “So I really tried to stick with the plan and to be aggressive, and take the ball early. That worked really well. Even when I was making mistakes, I didn't let myself get down for it. I just tried to be persistent and do the same thing over and over again.”
The prospect of a revitalised Ivanovic taking on Clijsters left us trembling with excitement for a while and when the Belgian won the first set against Bartoli in a flurry, a blockbuster quarter-final was taking shape faster than was expected. But then the world No.2 conceded an early break in the second set to fall behind 1-3, before walking up to the net to offer the match to the Frenchwoman.
Wozniacki upheld a tenet of tennis at the very top – that of finding a way to win matches even while not playing at one's best. She recovered from a dismal first set loss to gradually gain ascendancy by wearing down her Russian opponent, who just ran out of legs towards the end of the match. Wozniacki ended the match on a strong note, breaking Kleybanova three times in the deciding set.
Victoria Azarenka played the longest match of the day, needing just over three hours for a 46 63 76(3) victory over Agnieszka Radwanska. In a match riddled with error the two players traded service breaks as if they were selling power company futures in the aftermath of the nuclear threat in Japan. There were 17 breaks of serve in all before Azarenka came back from match point down to hand the Radwanska family a second defeat in two days.
Yanina Wickmayer blew the wick on Dominika Cibulkova’s brightly burning aspirations by clinching a closely contested 75 75 victory that took a little more than two hours.
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