Jelena Jankovic

Experience prevailed tonight.

Serena Williams defeated Jelena Jankovic in an often nervous but ultimately riveting match 6-4, 7-5.

It lasted over 2 hours, including a 1 hour, 17 minute second set that brought everything to the table: dramatic rallies, set points saved, a match point saved, key errors and stirring winners.

For Serena, it was a coronation of a long road traveled back to the top spot (literally--she's now the no. 1 player in the world). With the top players in women's tennis knocked away with an injury (Sharapova), early retirement (Henin) and a bad loss (Ivanovic), the sport is rewarding the player who hung around the longest, even if it wasn't exactly playing the best tennis we've seen from the game, or the best tennis we've seen from her.  read more »

In less than an hour, Anita Baker will be on that red carpet singing "America the Beautiful," and shortly thereafter, it'll be time for Serena and Jelena.

It is, also, bigger than a Saturday night match or a Sunday evening match--the traditional time for the women's and men's finals, respectively--and the biggest primetime slot ever dedicated for tennis: 9 p.m., CBS, Sunday night (the only other primetime Sunday night match was that ridiculous "Battle of the Sexes" exhibition in 1973).

The downside is that the women's final will have plenty of competition tonight: NBC has the first Sunday night football game of the 2008 NFL season; ABC has a primetime benefit concert that's featuring Janet Jackson and Jessica Simpson; MTV has the Video Music Awards; HBO has the season premiere of Entourage.  read more »

Play for the rest of the day has been canceled.

This means the Rafael Nadal-Andy Murray semifinal--which Murray currently leads 6-2, 7-6, 2-3--will resume tomorrow at 4pm, with coverage on CBS. Women's tennis will have its biggest stage ever, with a primetime 9pm final tomorrow night on CBS. The winner of the Nadal-Murray match will play Roger Federer in the men's final on Monday at 5pm.

Everyone is saying that this is Serena's tournament to lose, but is that fair?

Serena has lost to both Dinara Safina and Jelena Jankovic this year. She lost to Safina at the Qatar Telecom German Open, a match which ended in a third-set tiebreaker. And she lost to Jankovic at the Australian Open in straight sets (though Serena has also recently beaten her, at the Sony Ericsson Open).

Safina and Serena are underway now at Ashe, and Safina is up a break. So there.

The occasionally gloomy Jelena Jankovic is headed to her first Grand Slam final after defeating Elena Dementieva 6-4, 6-4, in a sloppy, nervous match. In total, there were 8 breaks of serve and 66 unforced errors.

Jelena Jankovic calmly strolled to the locker room after the match--generally a moment heavy in emotions--like it was an easy third-round win. Dinara Safina, who is about to play Serena Williams for the other spot in the finals, was in the hallway and tried to stop Jankovic and congratulate her, but Jelena was too spaced out to notice. Then, just as she was entering the women's locker room door, Jankovic screamed to no one in particular: "Get me one of those protein drinks!"

Someone mumbled something back.

"No, I'll be out soon!" she replied.

The lady knows what she wants.

Novak Djokovic got his first test of the tournament this afternoon, and now it's Roger Federer's turn. Federer and Igor Andreev have nabbed a set each (at 7-6) and Federer is up a break in the third. At this point, we'll start the women's match at about 8:30, Roddick's match at 10:30, and we'll all be going home well after 1 a.m.

Is Jelena Jankovic brutally candid, or a bit depressive?

In ancient Greek times, melancholia was thought to be caused by an excess of black bile in the blood. This has been more or less disproven by modern science.

What ails Jankovic isn't entirely clear. Later tonight, she'll face off against Sybille Bammer in the Quarterfinals. We're wondering where her mind is, so consider the following quotes from press conferences she's given during the past week and a half:

"I'm tired now. I'm actually falling asleep now. It's about time for me to go to bed, but when I was on the court, I really didn't think about sleeping.

 read more »

The first of our questions for the day has been answered, as Jelena Jankovic not only stayed standing, but won in straight sets, 7-5, 7-5, over Jie Zheng. It wasn't easy, though, and those two sets took over two hours. Jankovic will play her first seeded player in the Round of 16; her opponent will be either Victoria Azarenka (14) or Caroline Wozniacki (21), who play later today.

Jelena Jankovic has suffered from leg injuries for much of this year, and she had something of a scare in the third set of her second-round match against Sofia Arvidsson, when she was down on the court for about 30 seconds without sound or movement. But it didn't seem leg-related: "I was just tired, and I couldn't get up. I was so exhausted at that moment. I was breathing hard, and I didn't have the energy to get up." Yikes.

Jankovic went on, "I would have loved to, you know, take a nap on court, because I was really exhausted. But, you know, the rules are the rules. I had to keep going."

(Perhaps Brian Earley can be persuaded to institute naptime during changeovers?)

Jankovic went on to win, 6-3, 6-7, 7-5.

In an all-American first-round matchup under the lights at Arthur Ashe Stadium, 9th-seeded James Blake had to slog through five dramatic sets against the promising 19-year-old Donald Young before finally prevailing, 6-1, 3-6, 6-1, 4-6, 6-4. Blake's serve held strong and his net game remained impressive, though the number of unforced errors from both of these hard-hitting players was high. Young was able to dictate play and move ahead at key intervals, but ultimately Blake was just a bit more consistent, and he moves on to face Steve Karcis in the second round.

In the evening session's first match, Jelena Jankovic (2) beat American Coco Vandeweghe in straight sets.

2007 was the year of the Serbian invasion of Flushing. Novak Djokovic became an overnight celebrity; we called Ana Ivanovic the savior of women's tennis thanks to her refreshingly grounded personality; Jelena Jankovic cemented a reputation as a tireless grinder whom the press adored.

And then this year got off to such a great start! Djokovic won his first Grand Slam in Australia and Ana Ivanovic won her first major at Roland Garros.

But since then, those beaming personalities and sparkly clean images have taken a bit of a public hit. First, before Wimbledon, Djokovic declared that Roger Federer was mentally fragile and plenty beatable. After that display of arrogance, Djokovic went ahead and got bounced in the second round.  read more »

What's wrong with Venus Williams?

"I just was feeling dizzy, a little sick to the stomach," she said. "Was just having some energy problems. I'm not really sure what's wrong with me."

Neither does anyone else. After making 56 unforced errors in her agonizingly close quarterfinal match with Jelena Jankovic, Venus made 35 this afternoon—compared to 26 winners—in a straight-sets loss to Justine Henin.

Williams said she's been feeling strange—dizzy, tired, depleted—since she got two days off after the fourth round. That's when she told her mom, Oracene Williams, that something was wrong.

Oracene spoke to a group of reporters afterwards and revealed that Venus was feeling was sick after Wimbledon and was diagnosed with anemia.

"She was happy when she found out she had anemia and she thought that was it," said Oracene. "Now there's something else wrong. We need to get this checked out."

Venus told Oracene she was feeling sick after her match against Ana Ivanovic. It was a match where Richard Williams told me that something seemed a little off. Oracene recalled Venus telling her that when she hits a ball it feels like the ground beneath her is moving (sort of like vertigo). Oracene spent the last two days racing to Whole Foods buying up oranges for Venus, finding anything that could boost her energy.

Venus' boyfriend, Hank Kuehne, told me last week that he spends her matches paying close attention to her body language. While packing up the Williams family Lexus this evening he told me: "She looked zapped. I won't know what's wrong until I get in in the car with her tonight."

Venus was asked if she told her sister Serena about the apparent illness. "Serena was my opponent in the draw, too. I didn't tell her how I was feeling," she said laughing.

Maybe it's just fatigue after playing a three-set match the other night, or maybe it's something serious. The only thing that we do know: Venus didn't have the energy to keep up with Justine Henin today.

As Jelena Jankovic was picking up some final things at Arthur Ashe Stadium yesterday after her loss to Venus Williams in the quarterfinals, I asked her if Venus needed to pick up her level of play to beat Justine Henin later today, especially since she made 56 unforced errors in their match.  read more »

It wasn't a work of art from Venus in her match against Jelena Jankovic. She hit 56 unforced errors and had 8 double-faults. But when it came to a deciding third-set tiebreaker, she played her best tennis of the night.

"I felt really strong in the tiebreak, I felt fairly fresh," she said, "and I stopped missing, so that helped."

By contrast, Jankovic made errors at the key point and said she was so nervous that when she spoke to the crowd afterwards her voice was shaking.   read more »

Last night, Serena Williams spoke bitterly, and somewhat gracelessly, to the media after a devastating quarterfinals loss to Justine Henin. Tonight, Jelena Jankovic lost in the quarterfinals, and her public reaction couldn't have been more different. Here are some highlights:  read more »

Jelena Jankovic took advantage of a sluggish Venus Williams early in the first set and propelled herself to a 6-4 first set win. Venus Willimas was spraying balls and hitting sloppy errors. Venus found energy by the end of the set, but the wayward shots were still there. In the first set, Williams had 18 unforced errors and 3 double faults.

We've got a match.

UPDATE: The sleeping giant is up. Venus Williams just took the second set in less than 30 minutes, 6-1.

UPDATE 2: Venus prevails in tiebreak, 7-6 (4) in the third set.  

Jelena Jankovic and Venus Williams just finished hitting some last-minute balls on the practice courts before their quarterfinal match tonight.

Jankovic was walking back into Arthur Ashe Stadium when she told me how she could win tonight. “I’m gonna have to lift my game from where it’s been over the last few matches,” she said.

Jankovic has played in two consecutive three-set matches, while Venus Williams has cruised to the quarters without dropping a set.  read more »

While everyone buzzes about the Venus Williams-Jelena Jankovic match later tonight, the semifinal on the bottom half is now set. It's the battle of Russians, if not exactly notable (or pronouncable) names. 2004 U.S. Open champ Svetlana Kuznetsova will take on Anna Chakvetadze.

Both won easily today: Chakvetadze beat Shahar Peer 6-4, 6-1; Kuznetsova beat Agnes Szavay 6-1, 6-4.

One good thing for the USTA to make up for the lack of star power: They're both playing their best tennis.

No doubt freaked out that Svetlana Kuznetsova or Anna Chakvetadze would be the marquee players for a quarterfinals match on primetime on Wednesday night, the USTA just announced it has bumped the Venus Williams-Jelena Jankovic match from Tuesday to Wednesday.  read more »

Number of Match Points Jelena Jankovic had today: 7

She blew six of them, took the last to win her match 6-2, 7-6.

"Today I was really nervous, for some reason," she said.

She elaborated on something she told us earlier about her massive playing schedule:

"I am very tired. It's almost coming the end of the year. I'm not in the greatest shape. This is the last Grand Slam of the year, so I would like to save my energy, that little that I have left in me."

We've written about Novak Djokovic and Ana Ivanovic, but we haven't mentioned the other Serbian making a major impact on the current field: the 22-year-old no. 3 player in women's tennis, Jelena Jankovic.

Jankovic's ranking has rocketed this year due to a remarkably extensive playing schedule. She's played 80 matches in 2007, compared to Justine Henin's 48 and Maria Sharapova's 42.

Jankovic, who kicks off her US Open play today against Jarmila Gajdosova, said she wouldn't play mixed doubles in Queens– where she won at Wimbledon – because she's overworked.  read more »

Each morning here at the Observer's U.S. Open blog we're going to tell you what to look out for in the day's action. Today's tip: arrive early!

The heavy-hitters -- Jelena Jankovic, Justine Henin, Roger Federer -- will steal the spotlight at Arthur Ashe today. But you know how these first-round matches go: some of them are over in 40 minutes. If you have a pass that lets you into Arthur Ashe, don't be late.  read more »