From Serbia, with love

FOR a woman who just 14 months ago was on the verge of throwing in the towel, of giving up this silly game and going off to get herself a real life, Jelena Jankovic is doing rather well.

As the clay court season dragged on last year, Jankovic was deep into a run of nine consecutive first-round losses and she could not bear it. Already enrolled at university in Belgrade, she thought about jacking it all in and going back to her studies.

Only when her mother, Snezana, talked her into sticking at it did Jankovic give tennis another chance. "Every time I would lose a match, my mum would always give me support and tell me that I can do it, I have the potential," she said. Snezana was right, too, as her daughter stopped losing, reached the quarter finals of the Italian Open, beat Venus Williams on her way to the last 16 at Wimbledon and reached the semi finals at last year's US Open.

"I feel like I appreciate my results a lot more after that," she said. "I know what I'm doing and I know the right values. That's the most important."

This year, there have been plenty of results to appreciate. Now ranked at No.3 in the world, she has won more matches this season than any other woman (51 coming into Wimbledon), she has four titles - only one less than Justine Henin, the top seed here - and three weeks ago she reached the semi final of the French Open. Now she is safely through to the fourth round at the All England Club after beating Lucie Safarova 5-7, 7-6, 6-2 in a real scrap of a match on Friday. Then again, Jankovic is used to fighting battles.

She is the oldest of the Serbian gang of three who are lighting up the tennis world at the moment. At 22, she has a couple of years on Ana Ivanovic, the runner up at Roland Garros, and Novak Djokovic, but she still sees herself very much as part of the team.

"We are here to do our job, and we are very hungry to do well," Jankovic said simply. "That's all we care about. We care about winning and being the best that we can be. As a nation we're not satisfied with being second or third. We want to be the first, and that's how we are and that's how I am."

No one, especially not Jankovic, can quite believe that such a tiny, war-torn nation could produce three players capable of reaching the world's top 10. While she had already left Belgrade by the time the NATO bombing raids began on her country, she found herself watching events unfold on television as she settled into life at the Nick Bollettieri Academy in Florida. "My whole family was back there and I was worried," she said. "But that's the past now, though it was tough at the time, being alone and not speaking English."

Ivanovic, meanwhile, was still in Belgrade when the bombing started and timed her practice sessions around the air raids. After the war was over, there was no money for such fripperies as tennis so everyone had to make do and mend. Sometimes she practised in a disused swimming pool, anywhere that could house a makeshift tennis court. But such stories irritate Jankovic, a proud Serb and a woman who is determined to show the very best of her country.

"I wouldn't be proud to say I'm practising in a swimming pool," she said. "It's just sad that Serbia has such facilities like that, that we don't have many different surfaces and big clubs there so we can practise, and big gyms and everything.

"Now we are over that; no more swimming pools. Now we're on Wimbledon, playing on beautiful courts, on grass courts, and I'm just enjoying the tournament."

Jankovic is a firm believer in the theory that that which does not kill you makes you stronger. Arriving at the Bollettieri bootcamp at the age of 12, she was taken by surprise at the severity of the regime. But looking back, she reckons it was no bad thing.

"I learned to do everything the hard way, to be independent," she said. "It was a good thing, it made me stronger. I was like a soldier. From early morning when I had to make my bed, there were all these rules. If you did bad things you got zeroes and if you got enough zeroes you had to clean things. But that's good at a young age for discipline and motivation."

But if all this makes Jankovic sound like a fierce, battle-scarred competitor, it is misleading. She is bright, funny, prone to bouts of the giggles and cannot keep her emotions to herself. She enjoys her job and likes people to enjoy it with her.

"Doesn't matter what tournament I play, I get very emotional," she said. "It is something I don't like about myself, I cry so quick. I wish I was sometimes more cold, able to control my emotions. But this is how I am."

Tomorrow, weather permitting, she will face Marion Bartoli, the woman she absolutely clobbered in the fourth round at the French Open. It should be easy enough to control her emotions there but she may find herself in a bit of a fluster when she plays mixed doubles with Jamie Murray. She does not rate herself as a doubles player but the tennis is the least of her worries.

"Somebody said they heard that I have a sweet spot for Jamie Murray, and I said, 'where did they get that from?' Jankovic said. "Just to confirm, it's not true. Actually his agent said I was first on his list to play, and I don't know, maybe he has a soft spot for me."

The mixed doubles is just for fun, it is the singles that really matter. She has always been a fighter and now she has learned to be a winner.