All SmilesOK, so Istanbul hasn’t caught fire yet, but there has been one bright spot: the return of Jelena Jankovic to the year-end championships for the first time since 2010. JJ, unlike Vika, seems quite happy to be there, and she’s playing like it. At 28, four years past her own turn at No. 1, she has been rejuvenated, and it’s a pleasure to see her game in full flight again. Literally—Jankovic still plays with a lightness of foot and body. On Wednesday she gave us the tournament's first upset; on Thursday, she gave us its first fully compelling match, in a three-set loss to Li.
The press loves JJ because she’ll say pretty much anything, which makes her a breath of fresh air off court as well as on. I like her press conferences and her personality as well, but at a certain point I started to think she was almost too quotable—her funny comments never ended, which made them less interesting over time. This isn’t a criticism of Jankovic; it’s what happens when a player has to do a press conference after single match she plays. I’ll always respect the fact that, win or lose, she answers the questions as honestly as she can. JJ seems to enjoy everything that comes with being a professional tennis player.
That shows on court as well. Jankovic may moan, she may argue, she may complain, but she also smiles. While she plays a pretty standard baseline game, she never makes it look turgid. JJ leaps for her forehand, tracks down virtually everything on defense, and mixes up rallies with her trademark down the line redirections—she pulls her opponents out of position by going down the line the same way that other players do it by going cross-court. Jankovic may not run quite as fast or jump quite as high at 28 as she did at 22, but she still brings an athlete’s sense of freedom to the sport. That never gets old.
http://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2013/10/round-robin-review/49556/#.UmrcwHCBkzo 
