Air Quotes: This Week on "In Treatment"

Q. Obviously we've seen the rise and sort of the fall of your game. In Rome you put together some good wins. I'm wondering if you started to feel something click and change in your game now, or if it's just, you know did you?

ANA IVANOVIC: Yeah, a lot of things changed. I think I'm completely different player than I was, you know, a couple years ago. And also, there are more aspects in my game that I actually added. Still, you know, some days, you know, it's a little bit harder for it to fall all together into place. And other days it's much, much easier.  I mean, the improvements are immense. And since I started working with Heinz, it's really been, you know, every day I could see improvement. We worked a lot on my serve and just also on my groundstrokes to be more free and actually swing through the ball better.  It's just making me feel more comfortable in the court, and I do. I feel also I'm becoming more and more consistent, which was the thing that I always tried to do.  So finally I feel things are coming into place. I get excited, you know, because I want results, as well, straightaway. But sometimes, you know, you have to wait, because it's been a long, long time since I played a lot of matches in a row.  So it's a lot of emotions, so it becomes not so much anymore about this game in particular. It becomes also my mindset and some doubts that I still have. It's gonna be a process, but I really feel good about my game at the moment.

Q. Do you find yourself fighting with the doubts that you can be an elite player again?

ANA IVANOVIC: I have no doubt about it. I really feel I belong to the top and I can get back to the top. It's just the little steps and trusting myself when I'm out there, when I'm hitting the ball, you know, just trusting the movement and that stroke, you know, rather than pulling back and, you know, and in my serve, actually committing, because I'm serving you know, I was serving great past few weeks. It's been a huge improvement. Then sometimes I still doubt it.  So I think it's also a process of just doing it over and over again until it becomes a habit.

Q. Is it fair to say that the last maybe year or year and a half has not been very much fun for you on the tennis court?

ANA IVANOVIC: Not fun at all. You know, it was and also lots of tears and lots of hard times and lots of doubts and fears, everything, but, you know, it's something that you learn. And if you overcome it, it's you learn from it and it makes you better player and person after that. I have really good people around me now, and I trust them a lot. They're very supportive, and they believe in me when I didn't believe in myself. So that's great to see.

Q. You said that your game was much different than it was two years ago. What was the reason why you felt it needed the change?

ANA IVANOVIC: Well, at first with my coach, we thought, or yeah, he thought that maybe we need to improve in order to stay at No. 1 position, which now, looking back, it's really silly, because I had kind of good game and it was just matter of, you know, getting more consistent in the way I was playing and not trying to get better and try to be more technically perfect. Because, you know, everyone has a zone they need to feel good about. That kind of created a lot of doubt, because I started doing different things.
So all of a sudden, I went away from what I was doing and trying to play more close, play more open. So it was kind of a circle of everything and you don't feel so comfortable. You have doubts on the court. You lose some matches. Then confidence goes. So it's kind of circle.