Ana dumped Antonio Van Grichen as coach and then returned to the Adidas Players Development Program where she worked under the guidance of Darren Cahill. She started to show improvements in her results at Indians Wells, where she was a former champion and runner up. She reached the quarterfinals after defeating Serbian rival Jelena Jankovic in the 4th round, in what was one of Ana’s better performances of the year. However, despite her draw opening up, she lost to Marion Bartoli in the quarterfinals, not playing anywhere close to her best tennis. She then moved onto Miami, where once again looked primed to reach the quarterfinals. In the 4th round against Kim Clijsters, Ana held a 5-1 lead in the 3rd set and got to 0-40 on Kim’s serve. Despite having 5 match points in total, Ana was unable to close the deal and lost in quite possibly the most heart breaking fashion of her entire career. As a die-hard Ana fan, that match took several days to get over. I felt like that match really hurt her confidence heading into the clay season. A win here, would had been huge.
The clay season turned out to be something to forget. In May, Ana recorded a first round loss in Madrid to Bethanie Mattek-Sands, a 2nd round loss to Yanina Wickmayer in Rome and then another heartbreaking 1st round loss to Johanna Larsson at the French Open. Clay, which had been Ana’s best surface in the past, and Roland Garros, home to many great memories including her first and only major win back in 2008, became a nightmare for Ana in 2011.
Grass was a little bit better experience for Ana. She reached the semi’s in Birmingham, before losing to Daniela Hantuchova. She scored a victory over Julia Goerges in the 1st round in Eastbourne, before going out to Venus Williams in the following round. At Wimbledon, Ana breazed through the first two rounds before falling to Petra Cetkovska. Still, it was another disappointing performance at a major for Ana, and her season thus was a disappointment as well. She needed a change, and she went out and hired Nigel Sears away from the LTA and rehired former fitness trainer Scott Byrnes.
After a 1st round exit to Ayumi Morita in Stanford, Ana got revenge the following week in San Diego where she had a great run to the semi-finals, after defeating Shuai Peng in the quarters. She eventually lost to Vera Zvonareva, but played fabulous tennis in the process, taking the 1st set. She showed in only her 2nd tournament with Nigel as her coach, flashes of brilliance which gave her fans hope heading into the 2nd portion of the season. She wasn’t able to sustain it though in Toronto and Cincinnati where she exited both early.
At this point, Ana was entering the part of the year where she had tons of points to defend. Given her erratic play, it seemed as if it was almost a foregone conclusion that she would suffer some sort on ranking drop between the US Open and the end of the season. She first had to defend her 4th round points at the US Open, which she did after a first round win over Ksenia pervak, a 2nd round walkover and a 3rd round win over American Sloane Stephens in what was Ana’s first match on Arthur Ashe at night in her career. She went on to lose to Serena Williams in the 4th round, despite playing well and making the match far more competitive than any one had expected. All in all, she defended her 4th round points, which at that point, was all one could ask for.
Ana then proceeded into the fall season where she captured a couple of victories in Tokyo, then reaching the quarterfinals in Beijing defeating the likes of Kuznetsova and Zvonareva on the way, playing some of her best tennis of the season. Ana was forced to withdraw from the quarterfinals against Agnieszka Radwanska due to a lower back injury. However, she once again successfully defended her points. Despite being treated for a bad back, Ana decided to play Luxembourg anyways after getting approval from her doctors. Her stay there didn’t last long, going out to Anne Keothavong, a former pupil of Nigel Sears.
Ana’s season came down to one final tournament; Bali. Here, she defeated Roberta Vinci, Nadia Petrova and Anabel Medina Garrigues on her way to her 2nd stright title in Indonesia. She looked like Ana of 2007/2008 with some vintage forehand winners and all around good play. Thus Ana ended what was a disappointing season on a high note, giving us fans hope for 2012. She was able to defend most of her points and finish the season ranked #22 in the WTA rankings. Pretty remarkable given the amount of points she had to defend and how she played through the first 7 months of the year.
