FRENCH OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS:SOME PLAYERS come into a Grand Slam, feel their way for the first week and then try to work towards a peak for the latter stages. Not the young Serb Ana Ivanovic, who now threatens to usurp Maria Sharapova not only in the rankings but also in the glamour stakes.
If a life in tennis teaches anything, particularly to the women players, it is to expect to be knocked aside by someone much younger and just as marketable as you are even if you are the number one in the world and turned 22 only last month.
Ivanovic has ploughed through the draw from her first-round match against Sofia Arvidsson, whom she beat in two sets, to yesterday's defeat of Patty Schnyder, who departed Paris having been tattooed, again over two sets, by thunderous ground strokes.
In a cold, windy and wet Roland Garros, the ball must have felt particularly heavy for the hopeful Schnyder out in the deep freeze of Philippe Chatrier.
Early in the second set the Swiss 10th seed asked for an extra towel to wrap around her shoulders during the changeovers as temperatures around the main court plummeted.
In truth, she was not warming to the match either, and Ivanovic, last year's beaten finalist, breezed through 6-3, 6-2 in 75 minutes.
Schnyder tried to mix it up with drop shots and slices to move the 6ft 1in 20-year-old, but she was no match for her rival.
It was the fifth two-set match for Ivanovic, who has dropped only 20 games and needed less than five hours on court. It is her fourth time into the semi-finals of a Grand Slam; she made the final in Paris last year, the semi-final at Wimbledon and the final of this year's Australian Open.
"Easily? I wouldn't agree," she said, insisting on the difficulty entailed in what others see as her seamless progress.
"I had to work really hard for my matches. In tournaments leading up to the French I didn't find my form and I didn't play as well as I hoped for. So coming into the tournament and playing better and better is something that gives me confidence."
Ivanovic meets another Serbian, Jelena Jankovic, in the semi-final. Jankovic, seeded three, beat the unseeded Canary Islander Carla Suarez Navarro 6-3, 6-2.
The semi-final represents a coming together of old adversaries, although Jankovic, at 23 years old, is the more experienced of the two.
"We've played many times before and we always have tough matches," said Ivanovic.
"It's going to interesting. At least we'll have one Serb in the final."
Svetlana Kuznetsova, the fourth seed, maintained her smooth progress with victory over Victoria Azarenka of Belarus.
The Russian led 6-2, 2-2 when play was suspended on Monday night before quickly finishing the match by taking four of five games on the resumption.
In the final fourth-round match, the former Roland Garros junior champion Kaia Kanepi became the first woman from Estonia to make it to the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam, beating the Czech Petra Kvitova 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.
