Ivanovic happy to be one of the crowd

By Pritha Sarkar

LONDON (Reuters) - When Ana Ivanovic reached the summit of women's tennis following her French Open victory last year, the Serb forgot one thing -- from now on she could only go down.

A year after competing at Wimbledon as top seed, she is now just one of the crowd, ranked 12th in the world, but she could not be happier.

"Up until last year, my career was always going up, and my rankings were always improving. Then once I got to the top position, I had some setbacks," said the 21-year-old after her 7-5 6-1 second-round win over Italy's Sara Errani Thursday.

"It was a little bit hard for me to accept it. I just thought it's always going to be up the hill and it's always going to be better and better. But it's not always the case.

"You learn how to accept some losses, and it makes you stronger and makes you appreciate wins even more."

She has had to come to terms with a lot of defeats in recent months as she has yet to win a title in 2009.

The Serb tried to revive her fortunes by hiring coach Craig Kardon, who had previously worked with Martina Navratilova, Lindsay Davenport and Jennifer Capriati, but terminated that partnership after just four months.

Before the start of Wimbledon, she returned to work with her sponsor's elite coaching staff and since the set-up includes her former mentor Sven Groeneveld, she has started to enjoy her time out on court again.