JELENA JANKOVIC believes she is worthy of her place as the world’s best player despite not having won a grand slam.

The 23-year-old Serbian finished 2008 as world number one thanks to an impressively consistent season that saw her emerge victorious in 65 of her 84 matches and included a maiden grand slam final at the US Open and last-four appearances at the Australian and French Opens, alongside four WTA titles.

But Jankovic has yet to capture one of tennis’ ultimate prizes, meaning she is the first player in WTA history to top the rankings without a grand slam to her name.

While underlining her main aim this season is to rectify that statistic, beginning with the Australian Open later this month, she rejected suggestions it devalues her current status.

“I don’t really have to prove anything to anybody,” Jankovic said. “I play tennis because I love to play. I want to achieve my goals and one of my goals was to become number one and to finish the year as number one in the world was a huge achievement, I’m only the ninth player to do that. My priority for this year is to win a grand slam. I have worked very hard so I really hope for the best.”

Jankovic is in Hong Kong to play the JB Classic, her only warm-up event before the Australian Open gets under way on January 19th.

She enters 2009 in the best shape of her career following a gruelling off-season fitness regime that took in altitude training in Mexico and is hopeful it will help put an end to injury problems that dogged her at times last year. “I’ve never been as fit as I am now and I’ve never worked so hard in the off-season,” she concluded.