Despite back-to-back finals and winning the French Open title in 2008, the clay has never suited Ana Ivanovic’s style of play. Her one-two punch of the serve (when it’s working) and forehand is more suited for the hardcourts of Melbourne and New York or maybe even the grasses of London, but the dirt of Paris has always seemed to give her her best results at the slams.
For the first time since the 2014 Australian Open, the Serb is back into the fourth round of a Grand Slam event with a dominating 6-0, 6-3 win over 18 year-old Donna Vekic of Croatia. As you could tell by the scoreline, Ivanovic was all business from the opening point. She won 69% of first serve points and 67% of second serve points. She was in control on the return game as well breaking three times and winning 2/3 of the points when receiving. She had 11 winners in the set, 7 of which were from her favorite forehand side.
A second bagel set looked to be on the cards with Ivanovic taking the first two games of the second set making it eight games on the bounce for her, but Vekic broke for 2-1 to stop the bleeding. The bleeding didn’t stop for long though with Ivanovic getting the re-break she needed to allow her to take the second set 6-3. After the match, Ivanovic was pleased with how she played today. "It`s my best match on clay this season," said the Serb who had to come back from losing the opening set in her first two rounds in Paris. I don`t have a great record on this court (Suzanne Lenglen) so I am trying to correct that." Next up for seventh-seeded Ivanovic is the nine seed Ekaterina Makarova.