It’s official, Ana Ivanovic has finally solved her coaching problem, appointing American Craig Kardon as her new tennis coach.

Ivanovic will work with the 47-year-old Kardon on a trial basis. Their collaboration will start at next week’s Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships.

Ivanovic on the partnership with Kardon:

I’m happy to begin working with Craig. We’re going to see how it goes in the beginning and then I’ll make a decision about the longer-term future.

I feel like I made good progress during the Fed Cup tie and I’m not so far away from finding my old form. Craig has a lot of experience, he encourages attacking tennis and I am hopeful we will achieve some good results together.

Kardon used to coach eighteen-time Grand Slam champion Martina Navratilova (they worked together during the last of her nine Wimbledon titles), Lindsay Davenport, Mary Pierce and Jennifer Capriati.

Scott Byrnes will remain Ivanovic’s strength and conditioning coach. (source: Ana Ivanovic's official website, photo: ivanovic-ana.com)

Hi people, I’m back from Belgrade and Serbia vs. Japan Fed Cup tie and I’ll share some of my impressions with you.

First of all, not surprisingly, it was not much of a challenge for Serbia to beat Japan and reach the Fed Cup World Group play-offs for the first time.

Serbia cruised to an unassailable 3-0 lead with world No.3 Jelena Jankovic beating world No.26 Ai Sugiyama 6-3 6-2 in the Belgrade Arena. On Saturday, Serbia had established a 2-0 lead with world No.8 Ana Ivanovic defeating Ai Sugiyama 6-4 6-4 and Jelena Jankovic cruising past Ayumi Morita, ranked 86th in the world, 6-1 6-0.

In the fourth dead singles rubber, Ivanovic notched up her second win of the weekend by romping past Morita 6-1 6-2. Team Japan, consisting of Rika Fujiwara and Aiko Nakamura, won the doubles match, when the Serbian team of Jelena Jankovic and Ana Jovanovic retired after the second set, so the final score of the Serbia vs. Japan Fed Cup tie was 4-1. Read more »

Hi everyone,

Women’s Tennis Blog is back from our four-day break. While we were inhaling the fresh mountain air, the tennis world wasn’t sleeping, and here’s what we’ve missed to report while relaxing in the Bosnian snow.

Serena Williams reached a landmark 10th Grand Slam singles title crushing Dinara Safina 6-0 6-3 in the Australian Open final. I watched the match and Dinara really "was just a ballboy on the court". Don’t forget that Serena’s achievement is even better than reaching her fourth Australian Open title, as she won women’s doubleswith her sister Venus too. And even more, Serena has climbed back to the No.1 spot in the rankings.

Sania Mirza has become India's third – and first female – Grand Slam tennis champion by winning the mixed doubles title at the Australian Open paired with Mahesh Bhupathi.

In her latest diary entry Ana Ivanovic is defending the Australian Open – its location, facilities and its position in the tennis calendar. As for modeling, more photos for Ana's sponsor Rolex are out. If it hadn’t been published on her official website, I probably wouldn’t have recognized her.

Also, there are rumors that Dave Rineberg might become Ana's new coach.

You’ve probably heard about Jelena’s World, the documentary movie about Jelena Jankovic. Now you can watch it on YouTube.

Dinara Safina has a new official website, with everything you need including a section where fans can e-mail her.

And last but not least, Maria Sharapova, who has slipped to No.17 in the rankings, might be continuing to skip tournaments. Supposedly, she’ll miss Paris and Dubai. Remember, she has been expected to make a comeback at the GDF Suez Open? Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be surprised if the rumors proved to be true. However, if she really pulls out of those events, than her claims that she simply hasn’t trained enough seem unreliable.

If I’ve missed something in this overview, feel free to mention it in the comments below.

Glad to be back,

Marija

As you know world number five Ana Ivanovic is no longer coached by adidas’ Sven Groeneveld, although he was helping her during the Australian Open, and she has confessed being in need of a full-time coach.

I'm looking for a coach. We have already chatted with a couple potential coaches. In the near future, I really would like to make a decision. I think it's important.

Also, without a coach for so long it's a little bit tough. You just need some direction sometimes. That's something I felt was missing in my game. Already for a while we're trying to look into some good possibilities.

Obviously, it's a hard one, so I want to make sure we get the right coach.

Ivanovic apparently changed her mind, she had been much more confident prior to the Australian Open, look what she said before:

I already do know a lot about tennis and about other players (and) I think I'm very young and maybe a full-time coach could still be very helpful. (But) at this moment, I think I can handle it the way it is.

Reminder: The fifth-seeded Ivanovic was upset by seed No.29 Alisa Kleybanova in the third round of the Australian Open. (interview: Australian Open, photo: ivanovic-ana.com)

Last year’s runner-up Ana Ivanovic was upset in the third round of the Australian Open, falling to seed No.29 Alisa Kleybanova 7-5 6-7(5) 6-2 in their first career meeting.

I was aware that upset was lurking fifth seed Ivanovic, but I still hate the way she lost the match. The problem with ball toss is still in Ivanovic’s game. It was painful, and all of Ivanovic’s fans who couldn’t watch the match should consider themselves lucky. The following description will give you an idea.

Ivanovic for serving for the first set at 5-3, but then managed to lose four successive games and surrender the set to Kleybanova. The second set started horrible for Ivanovic, as she lost two of her serves, and Kleybanova had a 3-0 lead. Unexpectedly, Ivanovic leveled at 3-3, and after two breaks on both sides out of the next six games, the tiebreak was played, which the Serb managed to win. I was hoping Ivanovic would get new energy because of the hard-fought second set, but that wasn’t the case. She again let Kleybanova take a 3-0 lead, but looked to be repeating the situation from the second set winning two games in a row. However, Ivanovic didn’t level this time, and Kleybanova stormed to the victory.

Alisa Kleybanova will play sensational Jelena Dokic in the fourth round. (photo: Getty Images)

Fifth seed Ana Ivanovic advanced to the third round of the Australian Open with a 6-3 6-2 victory over world No.169 Alberta Brianti of Italy.

Good news is that Ivanovic displayed much more solid play than in her first-round match against Julia Goerges.

Brianti, who by the way looks a lot like Justine Henin, was making her first appearance in the second round of a Grand Slam.

The third day of the Australian Open has just begun and two other seeds also advanced. No.10 seed Nadia Petrova defeated Sania Mirza 6-3 6-2, while seed No.25 Kaia Kanepi beat Patricia Mayr 6-3 6-1. (photo: Getty Images)

Ana Ivanovic and Fernando Verdasco had been dating since the 2008 US Open, but the word is out that their romantic relationship has ended.

According to a friend of Ana's, the tennis star broke up with her boyfriend earlier this month, during the tournament in Brisbane.

I have to say it was suspicious. Those statements of Ana and Fernando, that tennis comes first, plus, I don't remember seeing a picture of them together this year. Moreover, Ivanovic was training in Australia for some time already, and Verdasco was nowhere to be seen. Also, Ana lost in the quarterfinals of the Brisbane International, but she didn’t stay at the tournament to watch Fernando, who went all the way to the finals. Instead, Ivanovic flew to Melbourne right away.

I’m kind of happy for Ana. She can do much better, and she's proved it. As some of you may have noticed from my comments, I didn’t feel their relationship from the start, even though they were being spotted together all the time. (source: Fox Sports)

Fifth seed Ana Ivanovic wasn’t in promising form during her first-round match at the 2009 Australian Open, but eventually she managed to get past Germany’s Julia Goerges 7-5 6-3.

The 107th-ranked Goerges was the first one to break in both sets, and overall was a good challenge for erratic Ivanovic, who had constant problems with throwing the ball to serve.

In the first set Goerges was close to a 4-1 lead, but Ivanovic managed to save herself from being two breaks down, and soon leveled at 3-3. The coming games followed serve, and Ivanovic finally broke Goerges’ serve in the twelfth game to take the first set after 56 minutes of struggling. The second set started with an exchange of breaks, and the Serb made a deciding one in the eighth game, to serve out victory in the following game.

Although the match finished with both players making the same number of winners, 17, the first set ended with Goerges scoring twelve to Ivanovic’s six.

Here’s a piece of good news for all of you worried about Ivanovic’s prospects in Australia: the last year’s runner-up started her 2008 Australian Open campaign with the same score, 7-5 6-3, against Sorana Cirstea.

In the second round Ivanovic will face Alberta Brianti of Italy, who went past Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium 6-4 6-2. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)