Foot Fault!

This time she made her swift exit to Ayumi Morita, losing 6-4 7-5.

Both the ball toss and her abysmal mental strength have been discussed to death, but what most caught my attention today was how the rest of her game has followed suit. Last week I stumbled upon a video of her from 2006, and though she’s ranked at almost exactly the same spot she was for most of 2006, she barely resembles the player she was even back long before her glory days. So much has been said about her passive play this year, but it’s more than just a mental problem - her game has just lost so much of what once made her formidable. She was clearly trying to be aggressive and step in on countless balls today, but it just wasn’t working.

The rest of Ivanovic’s year is going to be about damage control. She’s completely overranked as it is, and if she doesn’t find even a glimmer of form, her ranking can and will end up down in the dumps and possibly even lower than it was midway through 2010. Bad times.