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WIMBLEDON

June 28, 2007

Ana Ivanovic

LONDON, ENGLAND

THE MODERATOR: As a preamble, can I remind everyone that we're here to talk about tennis, its relationship here, Ana's match.

Q. How did you feel out there today?
ANA IVANOVIC: It was a very tough match for me. I don't know how much score indicates that, but it was fight. She played really well today. We had lot of long rallies. It was tough.
But my serve was working very well today. I was mixing it a lot. That helped me a lot to get through today's match.

Q. How much has the experience of the French Open affected, helped you move on?
ANA IVANOVIC: It helps me a lot. Through the matches, I've been through many tough matches in French Open. So now when I'm in the same situation, I just go back to that experience and I feel able to go through that again. I feel strong and confident.
It helped me a lot.

Q. Sorry to bring up bad memories. Do you go back to the final in Paris and think about that?
ANA IVANOVIC: Yeah, that also helps me because obviously I was very nervous for that match. Every match I play I get little bit nervous before I go on the court. If I think about final, I say what can be more important than a Grand Slam final so I find a way to relax a little bit more.

Q. How did you deal with the nerves in that instance?
ANA IVANOVIC: For me if I'm nervous, I stop moving. So key point is just to keep feet going, watch ball, focus on my shots, rather than if I'm going to win or lose point.

Q. Before your matches, how do you relax?
ANA IVANOVIC: I like to have maybe 15, 20 minutes just by myself to listen to iPod, just some music. Depends on the mood I'm in. And then it's important, too, to have a good warmup, to sweat a little bit. That helps me also with the nerves.

Q. What's on your iPod?
ANA IVANOVIC: I have lot of things. Usually it's R&B and house music also.

Q. You did so well at the French Open. You're obviously comfortable on clay. How are you finding the grass in comparison?
ANA IVANOVIC: It different game. It's different kind of movement. It takes some time to adjust to it. But now I'm starting to feel better on the court. I feel I'm moving well. Yeah, I just want to play my game basically, try to be more aggressive, which I think can be very useful in the grass.

Q. Do you think your game is actually suited to grass?
ANA IVANOVIC: I think so. I have a very good serve. I like also to come to the net. I improve my volleys. I feel comfortable in that part of the court as well. That for sure is going to help me.

Q. You've done a mobile phone advert with Daniela. Can you tell us about that?
ANA IVANOVIC: Yes, it was last year just before French Open we did that commercial. It was first time for me to do something like that. It was very exciting. It's completely different than what we are doing. Experience was nice, but on the other hand it was also very hard.

Q. Do you feel nervous with the spotlight on you away from the courts?
ANA IVANOVIC: Yes, I do. Especially it's something I'm not so familiar with. Many people around us were professionals filming that many times before. I was a little bit nervous. But I guess, yeah, we just try to think as we think on the court: to forget about what's around us and focus on what we have to do.

Q. How important is off-court profile to you?
ANA IVANOVIC: I think it's important. It's nice to do things besides tennis because it's also a kind of balance. If you only focus on tennis, only practice, sometimes you can get too tired. It's good to keep balance and do other things besides tennis. Yeah, I enjoy doing that sometimes.

Q. What are your other interests away from tennis?
ANA IVANOVIC: When I'm traveling so much, I like to read a lot, especially on the planes. Before matches also sometimes to relax a bit. I love watching movies. Music most of the time. Just something relaxing, yeah.

Q. You won the US Open Series last year. Do you think that's having any impact in tennis, and if so how?
ANA IVANOVIC: Well, it's definitely very exciting, yeah, very exciting time for me. I won my first Tier I title. I didn't expect to win US Open Series. It was good achievement from me. It's important tournaments, important part of the year.

Q. Do you think it's helping tennis, the sport of tennis, to have this series leading to the US Open?
ANA IVANOVIC: Yes, it is. I think it's very exciting and very good idea because not only you want to win tournament but also you competing for something else as well.

Q. Do you think you can win the title this year?
ANA IVANOVIC: Well, I want to. Obviously I want to perform the best I can, and that's my goal. But there will be so many hard matches, so many players want to do the same thing.
I just want to take it step by step and not think too much about, yeah, matches in front.

Q. Who do you think is the favorite for the title?
ANA IVANOVIC: Well, it's hard to say. There is many players at the moment that can be very, yeah, win this tournament. As I mentioned yesterday already, at this point I think everyone can beat everyone. It's exciting for women's tennis. It's very exciting for us. I think there are players like Justine and Mauresmo definitely favorites.

Q. Do you think actually the women's tour is more interesting than the men's with Federer and Nadal winning?
ANA IVANOVIC: Yeah, I think that's very exciting. For people also watching because you don't know who's going to win this week. Before you could say maybe, as you said, Federer, he's probably going to win every tournament he plays. In the women's, it's different at the moment. That's what's exciting for all of us.

Q. Whose idea was it to play doubles with Daniela?
ANA IVANOVIC: After French Open she asked me to play doubles. Yeah, so I accepted.

Q. You will play after Wimbledon Fed Cup. Maybe you will play against Hantuchova again. Do you speak about it with her?
ANA IVANOVIC: No, we don't. We don't talk much about it. Just about this tournament. It will be first time we play doubles together. But we haven't spoke about Fed Cup.

End of FastScripts

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