2015 US Open Day 1: Ana Ivanovic Highlights First Round Women’s Top 10 Upsets

Ana Ivanovic (click to enlarge)

2015 was supposed to be a big year for Ana Ivanovic. The 2008 Roland Garros champion was coming off a 2014 season that saw her win 4 titles and finish runner-up twice. After another runner-up result to start 2015 at Brisbane, it’s been a bit of a disappointment. So far, no titles. What’s more, despite her best finish in a Major (Roland Garros semis) since she won in Paris seven years ago, she went out in the first round at the Australian Open, the second round at Wimbledon and now the 7th seeded Serbian has been ousted in the first round at the US Open. Sure, she had the misfortune of drawing former Australian Open runner-up Dominika Cibulkova, a diminuitive but powerful giant killer, in the first round. So Domi winning 6-3 3-6 6-3 over Ana isn’t a shock, but it still doesn’t explain the entire year. Ana is better than her results at Majors. Since her 2008 Roland Garros title, she has only gone past the 4th round at a Major 3 times in 30 events. She actually has more first round exits (6) over that period. I’m a huge Ivanovic fan, so I hope she plays the fall schedule well…maybe salvages the year with a title or at least a final. Increasingly, it appears as if she’ll have to work on her game in the off season and look to 2016 for a return to good form. Ana wasn’t alone in being a top 10 first round casualty. 8th seed Karolina Pliskova, a big hitter who looks like a future Major winner, will have to wait until the future before fulfilling her promise as she was upset by Anna Tatishvili in emphatic fashion, 6-2 6-1. Also crashing out of the US Open in the first round was 10th seed Carla Suarez Navarro, who lost to 22-year old Czech player Denisa Allertova, 6-1 7-6 (5).