Real sadness, the kind of heartbreak which defines the human condition in its deepest vulnerabilities and its most profound moments of loss, exists in Haiti, where a nation screams in agony and wails in lamentation.

Real hardship consists of buildings flattened, lives ended, dreams shattered amidst rubble and wreckage. There’s no question that sportswriters – whenever they’ve referred to sadness or devastation or pain – have often (though not always) overemphasized the impact of sports on the people who participate in them. As a result of this sometimes-existing dynamic, the fans of various teams and athletes have been made to feel empty when the wrong result emerges on gameday.

So with that preamble out in the open, let’s just say this about the just-concluded day four of the 2010 Australian Open: Ana Ivanovic isn’t suffering in a way any of us would mind. A good 99.5 percent of other human beings would gladly trade places with a beautiful, telegenic and intelligent young woman who owns a major championship (the 2008 French Open), millions of dollars, a megawatt smile, and a considerable amount of talent on a tennis court. Yet, for all those attractive elements, the 22-year-old Serbian is undeniably in the midst of a worrisome stretch in a career whose promise and potential seem to be drifting away.

After she won the French Open nearly two full years ago, Ivanovic suffered an injury to her right thumb, which forced her to pull out of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. That injury halted what had been a steady rise to the top echelon of the WTA Tour.

A regular presence in the top 5, Ivanovic had already reached three major finals – winning one – when the summer of 2008 arrived. A thumb injury would naturally affect a tennis player, given the centrality of a racquet grip in calibrating and coordinating a full arsenal of shots. When Ivanovic – then the No. 1 player in the WTA rankings – lost in the second round of the 2008 U.S. Open to unheralded Frenchwoman Julie Coin, the tennis community realized the extent to which her injury had disrupted Ivanovic’s on-court performance.

Ever since that train wreck in New York, Ivanovic has failed to escape the fourth round of a major. Quarterfinal and semifinal showings – let alone appearances in the championship matches of the sport’s biggest events – no longer materialized, and what began as a physical wound turned into a full-fledged crisis of confidence.

As she headed to Melbourne for this year’s Australian Open, Ivanovic had hoped to create a new beginning for her still-young career. With a fruitless 2009 season now a distant memory, the native of Belgrade sought to re-establish herself as an upper-tier performer.

After Thursday’s agonizing second-round loss to Argentina’s Gisela Dulko, the term “upper tier” turned into tears for a visibly shaken young woman.

Ivanovic fell in 2 hours and 42 minutes at Margaret Court Arena, bowing to her South American opponent, 6-7 (6), 7-5, 6-4. The searing setback caused Ivanovic to well up with visible and transparent emotion in a post-match press conference. While vowing to exhibit patience and not assign too much meaning to the result, Ivanovic couldn’t hide the immense disappointment that defined her reaction to this event.

What will haunt Ivanovic was something that plagued Justine Henin the night before in the Belgian’s match against Elena Dementieva: the ball toss on her serve. Ivanovic gutted out a tight first set after narrowly escaping in a 14-point tiebreak, but that moment of satisfaction proved to be fleeting. In the second and third sets, Ivanovic’s ball toss possessed no consistency whatsoever, as the Serb’s racquet chased after the little yellow pill with frequently maddening results. The No. 20 seed at this tournament served up 11 double faults and produced precious little power on her serve. Initiating a point is supposed to be an advantage in tennis, but with her assortment of serving problems, Ivanovic won only 54 percent of her service points and was broken nine times by Dulko.

It’s worth pointing out that Ivanovic broke her Argentine opponent on seven separate occasions, but was the second-best returner on this sun-baked afternoon in Australia. In a match where Dulko sprayed 71 unforced errors across the plexicushion surface used at Melbourne Park, Ivanovic committed 75 errors. Given the closeness of the scoreline, those extra few errors – and Dulko’s 9-7 edge in service breaks – clearly loomed large.

We should all want to have Ana Ivanovic’s problems, but that doesn’t mean the Serbian star isn’t enduring a profound amount of pain and heartbreak on a long plane flight back to Europe. If she can’t figure out her serving mechanics, a woman with a lot of life ahead of her won’t have the fulfilling career she envisioned just a few short years ago.

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