Jelena Jankovic has the mien, and game, of a tennis star

From Carlsbad — 

Big-time tennis has returned to Southern California this week, and Jelena Jankovic is the biggest name here.

She is seeded No. 1 for what is now known as the Mercury Insurance Open. The once popular tour stop in Carlsbad went away for two years while the WTA reshuffled its schedule deck. But it is back, at the same La Costa Resort spot, and with the same air of semi-competitive leisure it always had amidst a season of tennis grinding.

Ticket buyers seeking celebrity will plunk down cash to see the star of Serbia because, along with a nice forehand and backhand, she carries herself like one. Monday at La Costa was mostly a time for Jankovic, who won’t play until Wednesday or maybe even Thursday, to meet the media and get ready for her various close-ups.

She has issues, of course. This is women’s tennis. They all have issues. It is not so much an athletic tour as it is a 12-month soap opera.

But Jankovic has mastered the art of looking engaging and glamorous while chatting about injuries, two of which she has dealt with this summer.

In the fourth round at Wimbledon, she had to default because of a back injury.

“I hurt it in practice the day before,” she says. “I just rotated my hips wrong. I couldn’t even bend over and tie my shoes. At 25, that’s not good, and it’s not the first time that’s happened to me.”

She got that taken care of, then went off to play a tournament in Slovenia and, 12 days ago, twisted her left ankle and had to default out of that match.

“I was anxious to play because I’d been out almost a month,” she says.

Now, starting with this event, she is driven by more than a simple eagerness to get back out on the court. The U.S. Open lurks just four weeks away. Big events in Cincinnati and Montreal are the main dress rehearsals for that, but the more matches a player can get, the more match-tough she will be. At least that is Jankovic’s theory, despite the current fragile state of her body.

The tournament is also a bit more for Jankovic than mere preparation for a Grand Slam event. It is part of the run-up to the U.S. Open, site of her best-ever major tournament result, a 6-4, 7-5 loss in the 2008 final to Serena Williams.

“Of the majors,” she says, “I think my best chance to win is either the French or the U.S. Open. Those suit my game the best.”

Her game is basically that of counterpuncher. Despite her height, 5 feet 10, she does not boom serves and overpower opponents. She is fast, her strokes are fundamentally sound, and when she is healthy and happy, her athletic talent and determination are more than enough to bring success.

She is No. 2 in the world now, on a tour that seems to pass that honor around like a hot potato, and was No. 1 for several months at the end of 2008, before Williams replaced her in February 2009. She has also slipped almost out of the top 10 several times since she joined that elite group in 2007.

Her tennis roller coaster includes an attempt to get bigger and stronger, so she could take on the so-called Big Babes of the tour straight up. But that failed miserably.

“I got too big,” she says, referring to her effort to bulk up for the 2009 season. “I was too slow. I wasn’t playing my game. I am built in a way that I can’t have muscles. My strength of my game is in my movement.”

So Jankovic started 2010 minus muscles, and down several pounds, and it worked. She got to the semifinals at the French, and two months before that, in March, she won the title at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells.

It was there, in her trophy acceptance speech, that she told Southern California that she soon would be one of us — that is, when her 20,000-square-foot home is completed in Rancho Santa Fe.

“Next year, when I come here,” she says, “I can sleep in my own bed.”

bill.dwyre@latimes.com