Ivanovic has a lot of reasons to shout after shots on Thursday ... 39 of them. (Getty Images)

The summer of 2008 seems like an awfully long time ago when you consider the career track of one Ana Ivanovic.

She is one of those tennis players who is both blessed and cursed with the looks of a model. It's great for the obvious advantages, but in sports, particularly tennis, it can be a detriment. Comparisons start being made to Anna Kournikova, the Russian who always drew more attention for her looks than her game and has received undue criticism over the years for getting by just on her looks, not her ability.

However those comparisons were never fair to Ivanovic. It was just four years ago that she was on top of the women's tennis world.

U.S. Open Day 4

It was in that summer that she hit the high point of her career. Early in the season she went all the way to the finals of the Australian Open and then followed that up with her first Grand Slam title, taking the French Open crown and the No. 1 ranking in the world. Things were good, she looked like the next big star in the women's game.

But then she hit hard times. Her game slipped and people were writing her off. She was a flash in the pan, had a fragile psyche ... any other such criticisms you can think of. She fell all the way out of the top 20 in the WTA rankings after a rough couple of years and in 2011 she had two first-round exits at Slams, the French included.

She decided to make some changes to try and right the ship. She swapped coaches in 2010 and maybe now it's starting to pay its dividends.

Ivanovic has climbed up the rankings and entered the U.S. Open as the 12th seed, still well below the radar, even with her high profile based on her celebrity. Now she's sitting in the third round looking as good as ever. On the court, that is.

Ivanovic took the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Thursday morning against Sofia Arvidsson and was just hammering away. She completely dictated play from start to finish and advanced to Round 3 with a breezy 6-2, 6-2 win. It was how she did it that was so impressive.

Ivanovic reminded everybody what made her so good ... her forehand. She always had a power game in her arsenal but she really began to fall in her career when she struggled with her serve, particularly the ball toss. With that seemingly straightened out, she has been able to get herself back into matches and ahead of the point. When she is, she can do what she did Thursday: rack up 39 winners.

In total, Ivanovic won 67 points in the match. So well more than half came on her own winning shots, all on the forehand, no less. In the women's game 39 winners is outstanding -- heck, it's a great day at the office for any player -- then add in the fact that it happened in just 16 games and you can't not be impressed.

For comparison's sake, the hard-hitting Serena Williams had 16 winners in her first-round 6-1, 6-1 win over Coco Vandeweghe.

The Serbian still has a ways to go. Up next she might have a match with rising American Sloane Stephens who is no easy out, but Ivanovic did go through Stephens at the Open a year ago. It's when Ivanovic goes up against the real powerful players who can push her around the court and not allow her to get around on that forehand that she'll face her biggest challenge.

It's important not to take a match for more than what it is at that time. In this case that would be a second-round match against an inferior opponent who Ivanovic is now 6-0 against in her career. But it's hard to be any more impressive than Ivanovic was on Thursday. She looked a lot like the former No. 1.