Iva Jovic has admitted she has been trying to copy some of her rivals on the WTA Tour to improve her own game.
Jovic is one of the most exciting players on the WTA Tour right now, and she has continued to impress in 2026.
This includes achieving the best Grand Slam result of her career, with Jovic reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian Open in January.
Jovic often speaks about her admiration for Novak Djokovic, but she has now named three WTA players that she also tries to emulate after winning her first match of the clay court season in Charleston.
Iva Jovic has looked to Jessica Pegula, Belinda Bencic and Bianca Andreescu for inspiration
Jovic beat her compatriot Alycia Parks 6-3, 6-2, to win her first ever match at the Charleston Open.
In her post-match press conference, Jovic was asked about trying to make improvements to her game, to which she revealed that she had taken inspiration from the likes of Jessica Pegula, Belinda Bencic and Bianca Andreescu, players who have similar baseline games to hers.
“I think that’s the trickiest balance,” responded Jovic. “Because I’m, and I think a lot of tennis players, we are very stubborn and I think we can be a bit extreme in our views, because we are just perfectionists.
“Tennis is one of those sports where it is physically impossible to be perfect and to not miss, so you have to stay with your identity. I have to identify ‘Who am I as a player and what is my game style?’ And then you just build around it, and I try to just emulate certain people.
“I think about players who have been extremely successful in this sport and what they have that I don’t have, so someone similar to you but maybe you don’t have all those little fine tunes that they have.
“So I look at Belinda Bencic, I look at Jess Pegula, Andreescu as well. I might play her, I know. The tennis she was playing, even now, but when she won the US Open was something that I look up to.”
Pegula has been very supportive of Jovic on her rise up the rankings, and they actually played for the first time at the Dubai Tennis Championships, with the former using her experience to beat the 18-year-old.
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This time last year, Jovic was ranked outside the top 140 in the WTA rankings and had only won two Grand Slam matches.
Just 12 months on, Jovic is at her career-high ranking of world number 16 and has relatively few points to defend over the clay and grass court seasons.
Despite being backed to achieve big things as a junior, Jovic admitted that she was not sure she was ever going to achieve these heights.
However, Jovic believes she still has a lot to improve in her game and appears to now have big ambitions for the future.
“It’s crazy to be in the position that I’m in, because I don’t feel that I’m close to maximizing myself yet, but I realistically didn’t think that I would get here honestly,” said Jovic.
“You know, when I was younger I just wanted to play, I just dreamt about playing tennis and being good enough to be in the Slams, so this is already above what I expected for myself. Now that I’m here and I see how much room I have for improvement, I see that there’s a lot of opportunities ahead.”
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Jovic mentioned that she could have played the aforementioned Andreescu at the time of her press conference, but instead she will actually face another Grand Slam champion in her next match in Charleston.
Sofia Kenin is a former Australian Open champion and reached the final in Charleston last year, but she was on an eight-match losing streak before beating Andreescu.
This will be the first time the two American players Jovic and Kenin have played, and they will do so for the first time with a place in the Charleston Open quarterfinals on the line.
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