Posted by Peter Bodo, TENNIS.com
Two couples were in the tennis news in a big way Sunday for being "just friends:" Radek Stepanek and Martina Hingis (Hingis, just friends with an ATP pro? Hahahahaha!), and Novak Djokovic and Ana Ivanovic. Stepanek leaked word through ATP officials that his engagement to Hingis is definitely off (tennis pros of the world, rejoice!), while Djokovic and Ivanovic continued to tear up the tennis battlefield.
Djokovic and Ivanovic gave the world its greatest "Serbia Moment" yet. A Serbia Moment can be defined as one in an increasingly frequent series of incidents in which two or more of the three Serbs -- Djokovic, Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic -- now ascendant in tennis open up a can of whup-ass on the pro tour.
Djokovic won the Rogers Cup Masters (the Canadian Open), rasslin' down Roger Federer 7-6 (2), 2-6, 7-6(2), thereby taking his second hard court Masters title of the year (he earned the first one in April in Miami). Meanwhile, on the far side of the continent, Ivanovic hammered Nadia Petrova, 7-5, 6-4, to win the East West Bank Tennis Classic in Carson, Calif.
So how unlikely was all that? Not very, if you've been paying attention to tennis lately. Djokovic and Ivanovic have been churning out Serbia Moments with startling regularity since the Australian Open in January. In fact, some people were yawning and glancing at their watches as they waited for the inevitable: Djokovic punching through Nadal and Federer in the same event to win something big. He did that last week, throwing Andy Roddick on the victim list. The Djoker took them in order: Roddick (quarters), Nadal (semis) and Federer in the final. This made Djokovic the first player since Boris Becker in 1994 at Stockholm to beat the world top three in the same tournament.
Ivanovic's achievement was less earth-shaking, partly because the women's game has no equivalent of Nadal and Federer. (Chris and Martina, how about lacing them up again?) But in terms of this whole Serbia Moment thing, which is kind of like that Jamaican Bobsled thing and British Ski-Jumping thing, except for the fact that the Serbs actually can compete, it hit the right note again.
Ivanovic and Djokovic grew up together in Serbia -- they hit tennis balls and played tag and hide-and-seek, at a time in that troubled, war-torn nation when the odds that either -- never mind both, or all three, counting Jankovic -- would make it to the top of the pro game seemed impossibly long. Yet they pulled it off, and that's why even the Kumbaya segment of the global tennis community, which can be squeamish about excessive nationalism, is celebrating Serbia. The three Serbs have made it clear that their job description includes letting the world know that Serbia has more to offer the world than grim news clips featuring genocidal militiamen, UN warplanes and war criminals.
This is a real, ongoing love affair, folks, and it isn't between Djokovic and Ivanovic. They're just friends, remember?
