For all the time I spent pumping up Ana Ivanovic last year following her win at the French Open, I have to be fair by mentioning how much of a downturn her career has taken since. Since winning at Roland Garros, Ivanovic hasn’t advanced past the 4th round of any major, including a first-round exit this week at the U.S. Open. She battled a thumb injury last year and has endured bouts with a virus and a knee injury this year. Still, even with the typical type of wear and tear most players go through, you figure she would make at least a quarterfinal appearance or two. Her record this year is a miserable 22-13 and she has routinely exited tournaments by midweek. It’s not even about the competition getting better — most of these ladies are players Ivanovic should rip through but ones she’s losing to.

Whether it’s injuries, coaching changes, or a struggle playing with the bulls eye on her back, Ivanovic hasn’t responded well to her success last year. At this point she’s fallen so far and she’s so far removed from her Grand Slam win that the bulls eye excuse no longer applies. I don’t know if she grew complacent with her win, focusing on her vacationing and her new boyfriend because she was pleased she reached the mountaintop, but she needs to regain focus before she becomes a one-hit wonder. This awful streak of constant underachievement is simply disappointing. She needs to turn it around.

By popular demand, we have the All-Hottest Olympians Team. Usually they have the all-tournament teams and stuff, but athletic prowess is not exactly what concerns us in this instance. After all, what else are the Summer Games good for? Anyway, Jimmy Traina at SI Extra Mustard gave us plenty of excellent choices and provided some inspiration for this carefully selected group. Same with Brahsome who put together a hottest 11 Olympians list, and FanIQ’s Olympians that posed in Playboy.

Well, at least there is some good news in the face of Ana’s third round loss at Wimbledon — we’re soon to see her on the August cover of FHM. I haven’t been shy about posting my feelings of Ana previously, so in case you didn’t get the memo, this oughta help:

More pics from the shoot after the jump, as well as some of Ana’s analysis from her loss at Wimbledon.

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I pretty much had this up and ready to go for the last few days, I was just waiting to sub in a few details like the score she won by. Pretty much everything broke perfectly for Ana Ivanovic to win the French Open title this year, her first major win. First it was the news of Justine Henin retiring, then Maria Sharapova went out early, and the Williams sisters made their exits in the 3rd round leaving the draw wide open for Ana’s taking. Ivanovic capitalized and won the tournament without dropping a set, her first major win. It was great to see Ana get the win especially after the way she performed in her last two finals appearances; she got crushed by Henin last year in the French Open finals, and was handled easily at the Australian by Sharapova. Best part is that the win coincides with Ana’s rise to No. 1 in the world — she’ll have the top ranking when the new ones come out next week.

Now, onto important matters. With a Grand Slam win her pocket and the No. 1 ranking to come, where does this place Ana on the list of hottest top-ranked tennis players of all-time? I say she takes the top spot amongst the No. 1’s easily. After the jump, I have some of her competition …

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Let’s be honest here: pretty much all of us sports bloggers are just looking for an excuse to throw up a post on Ana Ivanovic. And if I can’t speak for them, then at least I’m speaking for myself. I haven’t exactly been shy when discussing Ana’s amazing looks, so why stop here? The Serbian tennis player is now being featured on a stamp in her home country, so says FanIQ. Apparently 30,000 of these special edition stamps have been produced. The best part is you can match the stamp together with an Ana envelope. Check it out:

I don’t know about you, but I’m bout it bout it. I mean seriously, what better way to send your business than with Ana? I might even opt for snail mail over email just to justify picking up a few of these bad boys.

They say pictures are worth a thousand words, so I won’t waste any more of them.

So yeah, she’s a tennis player from Austria and lost to Jelena Jankovic in the Australian Open this week. Oh yeah. And she’s 17. But that’s not for too long. Tamira has some goods, but she’s no Ana Ivanovic if you ask me.

Thanks to Andy for passing along. (also spotted at Deadspin, SbB, and WL)