Grieving death of grandmother, No. 5 Jelena Jankovic upset by Yaroslava Shvedova at US Open

Grieving Jankovic upset by Shvedova at US Open

NEW YORK — Jelena Jankovic felt as though she couldn’t even watch the ball.

The night before, her beloved grandmother had died back home in Serbia. That’s where her heart and mind were Thursday, not on the No. 5 seed’s second-round match at the U.S. Open that ended with a loss to Yaroslava Shvedova.

“I was very sad and emotionally I was really not on court,” Jankovic said. “I really tried my best to be there and to try to play, but it was really hard.

“You could see I was not happy on the court. I was really suffering. I tried to think about my tennis, but I felt like I was so late and so slow.”

Shvedova, a 21-year-old from Kazakhstan, won 6-3, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (6).

Jankovic planned to fly to Serbia on Friday to join her mother, who left New York on Wednesday to return home. Jankovic said she didn’t know many details after talking on the phone with her mother.

“I couldn’t really speak,” she said. “I was just crying.”

Shvedova had never defeated an opponent ranked higher than No. 15. She closed out the third-set tiebreaker with an ace after setting up match point with an overhead slam to end a long rally.

The 55th-ranked Shvedova also reached the third round at the French Open this year.

Jankovic lost in the final at Flushing Meadows in 2008, but the former top-ranked player has not advanced past the fourth round at a Grand Slam this year.

“When you are sad, when you are down, you’re not the same person,” she said. “You don’t move as well. You don’t hit the ball as well. My head wasn’t really there. I just was so — it was like a shadow of myself.

“But, you know, what can you do? Life goes on and I have to try to stay hopefully positive as much as I can, get through this.”