Sharapova vs. Ivanovic

Did you guys get to watch the semi-finals between Maria Sharapova-Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic-Daniela Hantuchova? I did! It was great! Among the four players only Maria Sharapova has won a Grandslam. Daniela Hantuchova is the most veteran, while Jelena Jankovic is somewhat like a Jelena Dokic - playing almost all tournaments possible. And because of the she started off her Australian run with an injury. Ana Ivanovic is the rising star among the four, she reminds me of Hingis in the sense that she is young, talented, passionate, and is drawing crowds and fans around her like Hingis did!

Some stats below will show help give a perspective of each player:

Daniela Hantuchova wiki wta

Turned Pro: 1999
Career Titles: 3 (2x Tier I, 1x Tier II)
Best result in a Grandslam: SF (AO 2008)
Highest Ranking: No. 5
Most notable win: Win against then no.1 Martina Hingis in Indian Wells '02 6-3 6-4.

Jelena Jankovic wiki wta

Turned Pro: 2000

Career Titles: 5 (2x Tier I, 1x Tier III, 2x Tier IV&V)

Best result in a Grandslam: SF (USO 2006; RG 2007; AO 2008)

Highest Ranking: No. 3

Most notable win: Defeated defending champion Serena Williams 6-3 6-4 in this year's Australian Open (2008).

Trivia: has played 27 or more tournaments every year since 2004.

Maria Sharapova wiki wta

Turned Pro: 2001
Career Titles: 16 (USO, WB, 1x YEC, 5x Tier I, 2x Tier II, 5x Tier III, 1x Tier IV)
Best result in a Grandslam: Win (USO 2006; WB 2004)
Highest Ranking: No. 1
Most notable win: Win against Henin in USO '06 meant she joined 8 players who defeated the ranked 1 & 2 players in the world to win a Grandslam.

Ana Ivanovic wiki wta

Turned Pro: 2003
Career Titles: 5 (2x Tier I, 2x Tier II, 1x Tier IVorV)
Best result in a Grandslam: F (AO 2008; RG 2007)
Highest Ranking: No. 2


Sharapova totally hammered Jelena - who was injured and couldn't serve if her life depended on it. Sharapova was 5-0 and was about to be bageled when Jelena won 3 straight games before loses the set at 6-3. The rest was injure-fest. Naturally, Sharapova won.

The game between Ana and Daniela was more interesting. Daniela was playing her flat,-accurate side-to-side style of her (which gave problems to Martina Hingis ages back) and was in cruise control to finish off Ana winning the first set 6-love and was up 2-0. But for some reason - I think it was the apathetic-ness of the crowd, Ana got her groove, albeit slowly, while Daniela just started making errors. Long story short, a terribly long deuce-advantage scenario was won by Ana after having some bad line calls and ultimately left Daniela without confidence. More of irritation and what, I never liked Daniela's attitude she's kind of condescending that way. the last set was 4 all till Ana broke and held serve. Phew!

This will be a very interesting and beautiful final! :P Hope they battle it out 3 sets with plenty of tie breakers and deuce-advantage-deuce scenarios! I want Ana to win, but Sharapova is fine with me! No more Henin, and Williams sisters please! Hehe.

Adios!