'There's still a lot I need to learn': Jovic finds her footing in Top 20

The cloudless desert sky and the 30-degree temperatures of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships are a world away from where Iva Jovic was 12 months ago -- in every sense.

Dubai: Scores |  Draws | Order of play 

This week, the 18-year-old is the No. 16 seed in Dubai, the first time she's been seeded at a WTA 1000 tournament and the first time she's competed as a Top 20 player. But this time last year, Jovic was ranked No. 167, and the No. 2 seed in an ITF W50 event in Spring, Texas. The town's name didn't presage its weather. Temperatures dropped below freezing, the rain didn't let up and Jovic's final against Mary Stoiana was eventually cancelled.

"I remember that week so well," Jovic said after defeating lucky loser Kamilla Rakhimova 6-1, 1-6, 6-1 in the first round. "I've never had delays for matches just because of how cold it was. Fountains were frozen over. It's definitely nicer to be here."

The speed with which the American teenager has emerged at the top of the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz is startling. She only cracked the Top 100 eight months ago, but has shown no signs of slowing down. Three months after that, Jovic broke into the Top 50 after winning her first WTA title in Guadalajara. Four months after that, she made her Top 20 debut after reaching her first Grand Slam quarterfinal at the Australian Open.

"I tried to not have a lot of expectations," Jovic said. "I definitely felt I was getting better and doing the right things, but you never know when it's going to click and how long it's going to take you."

Adjusting to new expectations is a challenging rite of passage for any newcomer: their mindset and their game have to adapt from being the free-swinging hunters with nothing to lose to being the hunted at the top of the game. In her head, Jovic is still the former -- but she's accepting the benefits that come with being the latter.

"Even though my  ranking is where it is right now, I still feel very new on the tour," she said. "There's a lot of girls that I haven't played yet. It's going to be my first meeting against Diana [Shnaider] tomorrow [in the second round], so I do feel like there's a lot I still need to learn. But obviously it's nice when you feel you're still developing, but you're already in a nice place. I've earned my spot to be in these nice places and hopefully it can stay this way."

Throughout the conversation, the level-headed Jovic keeps zooming out to assess her place in the bigger picture. She points out that she was match point down against Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva in the Guadalajara quarterfinals: "I could've won the tournament, I could've not, but the stars aligned in my favor." She's able to see both the advantages and disadvantages of being a young, new face on tour, too.

"You're young, you're fresh, everything is fun and amazing, youi don't get tired as much," she said. "That's good, but there's a maturity level that some of these well-seasoned pros have. Just a problem-solving experience to tap into in tough moments, which I don't really have. I go back to my junior experience, but it's obviously quite different."

Perhaps that explains Jovic's whiplash scoreline against Rakhimova, though the teenager also attributes the oscillating momentum to her much-needed break after a grueling Australian swing. One of the challenges she's identified as a new Top 20 player is having to balance training and gym work -- which she finds crucial for maintaining her technique -- with a heavier tournament schedule.

"Sometimes when you're competing a lot, you lose certain things," Jovic said. "Technical things get a little worse through the competition, so you need to go back in and clean up a lot of things. You need to go back in the gym a lot because you're not able to train as much when you're playing matches. Just building. [Last year] it was a bit of a blessing that I was under those age restrictions, because I had a lot of time to train to get better. Which is going to be different this year, but I'm going to have to manage that as well."

For now, Jovic's goal is less about winning specific tournaments and matches, and more about making a statement about the kind of player she is.

"In the juniors, I was always that player who was making deep runs every single week," she explained. "I wasn't maybe winning all the titles, but I was there every single week and I would never go out without a fight. So it's like, let's try to make that reputation in the pros too. So far, it's been great. I've been finding my footing in all these tournaments."