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Jelena won second place at the Rogers Cup in Toronto
World number one and top seed Justine Henin continued her dominance on the WTA Tour today with a thrilling 7-6(3), 7-5 win over Jelena Jankovic at the Rogers Cup in Toronto.
Although Jankovic has pushed her into a third set on five occasions, Henin has never lost to the rising Serb.
The level of tennis was excellent throughout the match, especially the tenth game of the second set at 5-all. Justine quickly raced to a 40-love lead, before Jelena stormed back to tie the game at deuce. The game went to deuce a total of nine times before a forehand by Jankovic landed in the net to give Justine a 6-5 lead.
Henin then broke Jankovic’s serve on her sixth match point with an inside-out forehand for her thirty-fifth career title.
Play VIDEO : Serbian TV Toronto-_Jelena
Serbian aces a huge hit on the courts
In retrospect, it's a wonder there wasn't a greater storm.
When a hapless tournament official in Montreal last weekend introduced champion Novak Djokovic as Croatian, anyone listening with even the slightest understanding of Balkan history immediately felt the awkwardness of the moment.
Djokovic, after all, is a Serb, and while those two nationalities were once joined in a larger Yugoslavia, that was all torn to shreds during the civil war of the 1990s. Of course, even when they did officially salute the same flag, Serbs and Croats were often at each other's throats.
Djokovic, to his everlasting credit, corrected the error with diplomacy and humour, joking "we're all the same anyway." It's no wonder people are really starting to like this fellow.
As small children, Djokovic and Ana Ivanovic, a rising Serbian star in the women's game, knew each other.
Yesterday, Ivanovic also recalled an under-12 tournament in their homeland, at a time when she would practise at 7 a.m. to avoid the dangers of NATO bombing runs, when she and Djokovic hit as a warmup to one of her matches.
Ivanovic was given a day's grace to arrive in Toronto for this week's Rogers Cup after defeating Nadia Petrova in L.A. for a WTA title on Sunday.
She is ranked fourth at the Rogers Cup, but some might consider her the favourite, and the possibility that she and countrywoman Jelena Jankovic could meet in Sunday's final is very real.
Despite the fact all three – Djokovic, Ivanovic and Jankovic – are children of civil war, all are among the most buoyant personalities on the tennis circuit these days. Jankovic paired with Scotsman Jamie  Murray, brother of Andy, to win the mixed doubles competition at Wimbledon, and the perpetually joyful Jankovic probably set a record for Grand Slam smiles, with Murray playfully flirting with her throughout.
She finally allowed Murray to give her a peck on the cheek as they accepted the winners' trophies, with the crowd eating up every moment. All three Serbs are fabulous additions to the international tennis world, and hopefully they will grow to be seen as distinct personalities and talents as well as for their shared heritage.
The hope, then, is that the meteoric rise of these Serbian tennis stars should be an inspiration to a country similarly without a rich tennis history. Like Canada, for instance.
Frank Dancevic set a tone in Montreal last week that Stephanie Dubois matched with a gutsy win over Japanese veteran Ai Sugiyama yesterday, and while the Canadians aren't quite there yet with the rising Serb tide, big dreams start with small strokes.
And, apparently, big smiles.
Toronto Star Aug 15, 2007
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