Kim Clijsters blew away Ana Ivanovic in just under an hour in an easy 6-2, 6-1 victory. This was Ivanovic's first fourth round Open match since 2007 when Venus Williams beat her 6-4, 6-2 on a Sunday afternoon on Ashe. That match looked like Agassi-Sampras 6-7, 7-6, 7-6, 7-6 match in '01--happened nine years ago today!--compared to this one.

Despite the fact that Clijsters and Ivanovic are two wonderfully nice players and two of my favorites, this was not easy to watch. There was a point very early on when the two traded breaks, but after Ivanovic lost a second service game in the first set, it began a streak where she would lose 10 of the next 11 games.

In the second set, the tennis became ugly, ugly, ugly. Ivanovic said her confidence is back, but she clearly still has a lot of work to do before she can compete in a real way at Grand Slams again. In the first set, she won just 9 percent of her points off her second serve. In the second set, she won just 38 percent of points off her first serve. She had 5 double faults for a match that didn't last an hour.

She admitted that she was overwhelmed by the moment.

"I was on a big stage again," she said. "I didn't have that feeling for a long time. Lots of emotions came back, and I just felt a little slow, and just a little bit out of it," she said.

Clijsters said her strategy today was to apply a little bit of pressure, and then sit back and watch Ivanovic implode.

"I knew once I got out there that Ana is the type of player -- she's playing with a lot more confidence, and if I can stay with her in the beginning of those first few games where she was playing really good tennis, if I could just stay with her and kind of just, yeah, make her once in a while doubt a little bit," said Clijsters.

As a result: "She starts making a few little unforced errors and a couple of double faults," she continued. "I really tried to use the chances that I had, and that's what I did really well."

It's a shame that a wonderful competitor like Clijsters didn't get any challenge today. It would be so great for women's tennis if Ivanovic should pull her game together, but clearly there's a lot of work ahead of her.

Clijsters should be ready for a tougher match in the quarters. She'll get the winner of Sam Stosur and Elena Dementieva, which takes place on Ashe later tonight.

We have first-hand experience with Ana Ivanovic's niceness. Even after she bottomed out and lost in the First Round here last year, she gave a ridiculously cordial performance in her presser last year, at a moment when any other number of stars would have been just awful to be around. Once Ivanovic lost her no. 1 ranking, we heard the same thing about Ivanovic that was once latched to Clijsters: She's just too nice.

I'm not sure if that's a bad thing, but these two aren't hiding it.

"She and I are good friends, and I'm happy to see her doing well again," said Clijsters after her last match.

"It's true also when I was struggling, she was messaging me," said Ivanovic after her third round victory. "She was very supportive. That's really rare and really nice to see. In those times, you know who your friends are. She's definitely a nice girl. We always have a nice time catching up."

I mean this sincerely: Aww. That is really nice!

Onto the match. Even though Clijsters hasn't done much since her improbable victory here last year, she's been described in the press as a favorite to win again. I don't see it. Ivanovic is slowly, quietly and steadily regaining her form that once brought her to the no. 1 ranking and a French Open championship. The last time she played on the Ashe court for a Fourth Round day match on CBS, she couldn't hold a candle to Venus Williams. But this is a different player now from the one three years ago. As Ivanovic has said herself, she has nothing to lose. She's going to play the role of spoiler in this U.S. Open and it'll start tomorrow morning. Look for a stunning upset with Ivanovic's victory that will probably get more recognition than her French Open victory.

I called her a spoiler and a sleeper, and now she'll get a date for a fourth round match on CBS in Ashe against last year's champ, Kim Clijsters.

Ana Ivanovic defeated Virginie Razzano this afteroon 7-5, 6-0, and she's gotten to her farthest spot at the Open since 2007.

In that match, Ivanovic was annihilated by Venus Williams playing in front of a full-house on Ashe on Labor Day weekend on national TV. She was overwhelmed by the moment, and though she would go on to win a French Open, her collapse from world's no. 1 to no. 40 was clearly foreshadowed in that match.

But this Ivanovic has been slowly creeping through the draw, and after tumbling out of everyone's mind, this one has confidence. And...

"I'm going out there and I have nothing to lose," she said. "I have that excitement of, you know, competing against such a champion."

That can be potentially scary. These are arguably the two nicest players on tour, so we're thrilled to see the two will be going up head-to-head.

And later this afternoon, the lady we're predicting will be this year's spoiler at the Open, Ana Ivanovic, will be playing the Frenchwoman Virginie Razzano on Armstrong.

Ivanovic, the former no. 1 player in the world and Observer cover girl in 2007, has tumbled all the way to no. 40 in the rankings. Her problem? Her head. The pressure.

The talent is there, and to listen to her now, you're starting to believe in her.

"I feel like I'm playing like a top 10 player and I have confidence that I can beat these players," she said. "That's huge for me."

That's a big statement, and she'll need that confidence too.

Her potential opponent in the third round is the Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli, a feisty player with the exact opposite situation as Ivanovic: She is limited by her body, but she's mentally tough. Ivanovic's potential fourth round opponent? Kim Clijsters.

With the way she's playing, it might be a stretch to say she's a contender again (then again, who isn't a contender on the women's side at the Open?) but you're starting to believe she could knock off a couple players in the draw.

"I see myself as two different persons," she said, right before the Serbian began her knack for speaking in run-on sentences. "Once you're actually coming up and you have no expectations, you are hungry for success, and you really don't know what the stakes are, you just go for it, you have no fear, you play freely against anyone you come up against."

Then, she said, once you get a French Open title and a no. 1 ranking you do feel it. "That creates some doubts and obviously pressure."

But now?

"Now I feel, you know, as I am just coming up again, and I have really nothing to lose. I got that joy of competing again."

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Ana Ivanovic, who was knocked out of the first round herself last year, came back strongly last night winning in straight sets. She told the press last night that she's confident again, but we've heard that refrain before.

In the featured matches, Venus Williams and Roger Federer both cruised to a straight set victories. Venus said her knee held up OK in the match, but we'll see what happens when she's better tested.

Oh, yes, and also: Anna Wintour told ESPN that Roger Federer does reach out to her to ask for fashion advice.

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"If she came to me I would say tell me every single thing that's on your mind," he said. "Everything! Do you still like the game? Have you lost your confidence? Are you afraid? Did you have a bad relationship? No question the talent is there, but the confidence isn't. And other players know that and she's vulnerable. Every time someone writes, 'She won the French Open, what happened?' you start to read it, and you start thinking, 'Something is going on!'"

Mary Carillo on ESPN suggested that Ivanovic should take a long vacation. Bollettieri didn't precisely agree with that.

"Hell, she's not doing too well, so she's not oveworked," he said. "She can't get past the second round."

It's almost hard to believe that she was ranked no. 1 in the world as recently as last year after the display she put on last night in a remarkable loss to Kateryna Bondarenko, 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 (9-7).

"It's very disappointing," she said after her match. "It hurts."

Ivanovic's reputation, particularly when she was a rising star, was that she was too nice on the court, and that she needed to show a little more emotion.

Last night, there was too much emotion. In a draining, 1 hour, 14 minute final set, Ivanovic slapped her racquet on the court, swapped the air in disgust and nearly broke into tears when she had to come up for a serve, down match point.

The loss capped off a dramatically disappointing season. She made it no farther than the fourth round of a Grand Slam this year, and she admitted she doesn't know exactly where to go from here.

"My fitness is at one level, mind at another, my game is at another level," she said at a press conference.

Ivanovic's forehand has always been her best asset. It left her last night. Her serve has always been iffy at best, but last night, particularly in the third set, it was nowhere to be seen. She hit into five double faults, including three in the final set. No fewer than a dozen times in the final set, she had to catch her service toss in midair and start again. Every time, the crowd let out an exasperated groan. She was unnerved.

"Yeah, it's -- I think it just -- it's very hard to describe, because what happens is that sometimes when I toss, I either release too early or I flick it and I release too late," she said.

When she lost the 14th point of the third set tiebreaker, and was finally down match point, she dropped the bill of her visor and pressed her hands across her face to, it appeared, suppress tears. She came up for her last serve heaving. After Bondarenko returned her serve, Ivanovic duly dropped a forehand error directly into the net.

It needs to be said that Kateryna Bondarenko has proven to be an upset master this year. The 22-year-old Ukrainian defeated Venus Williams at the Rogers Cup last month and Aggie Radwanska at the Australian Open back in January.

But nonetheless, at age 21, Ivanovic quit simply can't lose matches like this. She was down 4-1 in the third set. Champions come back. She did. She evened it out at 4-4. But then, after laboring her way to a tiebreak, with match point in her pocket, she gave it away, and then gave away the match.

Tennis careers, much like baseball teams building toward a World Series, generally build one step to the next. In 2007, she made it to the French Open final and the Wimbledon semifinals. She got killed in each match. She told this newspaper she needed to find a way to get the confidence to win those matches.

In 2008, she did just that. With Justine Henin freshly retired, Ivanovic routed a player in the French Open final even more emotionally fragile than she was: Dinara Safina.

Ever since, with a shoulder injury, and massive overhaul of her coaching team, Ivanovic hasn't capitalized on that success. When a reporter asked her last night if she wishes she could write off the past year, she said, "Yeah, I do. I do many times. I wish that."

She said she feels older than being 21, and that, "Probably in a few days I will look [older because of the] bags under my eyes.

Nonetheless, she cautioned the press, "As much as it hurts and it's been disappointing, I feel I learned a lot from it. I learned a lot about myself and you know, people around me and about what I have to do and in order to become a better player."

We hope so, Ana. Take a vacation and get back.

Because they haven't.

Last year, we watched Novak Djokovic transform himself from a New York hero into a villain after he gave a cringe-inducing post-match speech at Arthur Ashe (where  Richard Johnson booed him). When his Open run ended in the semifinals last year, he explained to the press that he wanted to forget the tournament as soon as possible.

After he won the 2008 Australian Open, we were expecting Novak to elevate himself into the top tier of players. That hasn't happened yet, and neither has a convincing run for a title since his triumph in Melbourne.

Meanwhile, Ana Ivanovic has had a spectacular fall from the top. After being ranked no. 1 in the world, she has dropped to no. 11 and has done no better than the fourth round of a Slam this year, and lost in the third round at the Australian Open. She won the French last year, but nothing since, and has become, quite simply, a middling women's player.

Jelena Jankovic, who played a competitive match with Serena Williams in last year's final, also has slowed down. After being ranked no. 1 going into last year's Open, she has fallen to fifth in the world and, like Ivanovic, has done no better showing than the fourth round in a Grand Slam this year.

All three will debut today, and to little fanfare: Novak Djokovic will play Ivan Ljubicic at Arthur Ashe today, and Jelena Jankovic will take on Roberta Vinci and Ana Ivanovic will play Kateryna Bondarenko. Both of those matches are at Armstrong.

Update: In the original version of this story, we stupidly forgot Ana Ivanovic's triumph at the 2008 French Open. Thank you to the commenter who alerted us.

And then this year got off to such a great start! Djokovic won his first Grand Slam in Australia and Ana Ivanovic won her first major at Roland Garros.

But since then, those beaming personalities and sparkly clean images have taken a bit of a public hit. First, before Wimbledon, Djokovic declared that Roger Federer was mentally fragile and plenty beatable. After that display of arrogance, Djokovic went ahead and got bounced in the second round. Meanwhile, Ivanovic, who reached the semis at Wimbledon in 07, suffered a humiliating straight-sets loss to a player seeded 133rd in the world. And Jankovic, after an early loss as well, reportedly complained louder than anyone about her court assignment at The Championships. Sports Illustrated's Jon Wertheim, in a story titled, "The Serbs' Dwindling Popularity," wrote, "You're in the second week of a Slam and you're griping about court assignments? It's not as though the net is higher on Court Two. Just win your match and move on. My sources tell me the most vocal griper was Jelena Jankovic (and her mom). Seems to me her outrage would be a lot better placed wondering why she is in her mid-20s and needs a medic-alert bracelet."

With the snap of a finger, our favorite pack of fresh and cute youngsters began looking and sounding more like entitled prima donnas.

Didn't the Times' George Vecsey predict last year that something very much like this would happen?