The first tennis match they ever played, Ana Ivanovic remembers, was in a carpeted swimming pool in Belgrade, Serbia. In an under-10 tournament, nine-year-old Jelena Jankovic hammered the seven-year-old Ivanovic, 7-1. Thirteen years later, Ivanovic and Jankovic meet on the red clay of Court Philippe Chatrier with an opportunity to become the No. 1-ranked player in the world.

The No.2-seeded Ivanovic advanced to the semi-final with a routine 6-3, 6-2 victory over Swiss veteran Patty Schnyder on Tuesday. Jankovic, seeded No.3, followed several hours later, defeating Carla Suarez Navarro, a 19-year-old qualifier from the Canary Islands, by the same score. Suarez Navarro was bidding to become only the third female qualifier in the Open era to crash the semi-finals, but Jankovic – who wrote "I [heart] Paris" on her taped right forearm – wasn't feeling an upset.

The Serbs remind folks here of the two Belgians, Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters, who came from a tiny, non-tennis power and both rose to No.1 in the world. They didn't do this despite each other, they did it because of each other.

‘The Serbs remind folks here of the two Belgians, Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters, who came from a tiny, non-tennis power and both rose to No.1 in the world’


Does Jankovic see a resemblance?

"Yes, I think so," she said. "I think we are going to be dominating this tennis world soon. One of us will reach No.1 soon, and then it will be depending on who is on form for the rest of the year. We push each other and we motivate each other to be better players.

"It's great for Serbian tennis and the whole world to have new faces, to have new players and great rivalries."

That they won by identical scores and Ivanovic's match lasted only three minutes longer was a nice piece of symmetry.

In business there is a principle known as dynamic tension, which illustrates the benefits of competing priorities. Competition and rivalry, if the circumstances are right, can manifest themselves in a bigger bottom line.

The same is true of tennis.

What are odds of a city like Belgrade, with a population of less than two million, producing two of the world's best three players? Better than you might think.

History is littered with similar examples of an environment that, charged with competition, delivered multiple champions: the Australians of the 1960s; John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors a decade later; and the Nick Bollettieri Academy, which produced Andre Agassi and Jim Courier.

The Williams sisters crashed into the global tennis hierarchy from the unlikely launching point of Compton, California. The Bondarenko sisters (from Krivyi, Ukraine) and Radwanska sisters (from Krakow, Poland) have also been propelled by peer pressure, as have Dinara and Marat Safin, who grew up playing in their father Misha's small club in Moscow. Lately, Barcelona, Spain, has been the lively locus of clay-court success.

While Ivanovic and Jankovic are careful to be respectful of each other in public, they are not best friends, nor even overly friendly. It would actually be more surprising, given the circumstances, if they were.

"When she was younger she went to America and I went to Switzerland, so we didn't really have a chance to practice together," Ivanovic said. "Now, travelling, she has her own team and I have my own team. You know, we don't just hang out."

Henin actually invited Clijsters to her 2002 wedding to Pierre-Yves Hardenne, but a year later the relationship cooled when someone in Clijsters' camp wondered publicly how Henin managed to stay on top for so long despite her slight stature.


It was appropriate that Ivanovic was the first to gain the semi-finals because, despite being 33 months younger than Jankovic, she has always been a little better at the professional level. Ivanovic, 20, reached her first Grand Slam final a year ago here at Roland Garros and her second at this year's Australian Open. This is Jankovic's third Grand Slam semi-final and her second straight at Roland Garros.

Based on their history, Ivanovic will prevail. They have played six matches (not including a walkover for Ivanovic), and Ivanovic has won five, and 10 of 14 sets. In the only match played on clay, which would figure to give Jankovic an advantage, Ivanovic still won in straight sets.