Tennis/French Open: Much of the talk after the semi-finals at Roland Garros is of how hardship has, somehow, injected the Serbian players with an ingredient that has allowed them excel in this championship.

The very thought that the US, Britain and Australia have become Third World countries with regard to tennis, while Eastern European countries, particularly Serbia and Russia, have produced dozens of top players over the past five years, is generating considerable anxiety in those struggling First World nations.

The reasons being aired are that because these European players have had to struggle against adversity as children, they have become more durable when it comes to the dog-eat-dog world of tour tennis. Country-club kids they are not.

"I think the Serbians generally are very, very tough people with a strong winning mentality," said semi-finalist Jelena Jankovic. "I will do anything to win." Finalist today against Justine Henin, Ana Ivanovic, said they had to find other places to play their tennis as youngsters "because back home was very tough".

Maria Sharapova also joined the chorus after she was beaten by Ivanovic. "You guys don't see how much of a work ethic they have and how much they train," she said.

"People that come from tough backgrounds and haven't had pleasant situations have been able to find ways on their own. Not coming from wealthy families they have to work for everything and that means a lot."

Even Novak Djokovic, who lost yesterday to Rafael Nadal, believes the war years in his country between 1991 and 1995 and later the Nato bombing of Belgrade in 1999 taught people to be tough and durable. But the 20-year-old was more reticent about the fighting.

"I don't like to talk about it," said Djokovic. "We had a lot of difficult times in the past. I couldn't stay in my country and develop because I didn't have conditions. Fortunately for me, I was surrounded by good people."

None of the three Serbs grew up in their own country. Djokovic was raised in Italy and Germany from the age of 12 with money provided by sponsors. Jankovic was taken as a 14-year-old player in Belgrade and moved to the Nick Bollettieri tennis camp in Bradenton, Florida. Ivanovic learned her game in Switzerland, thanks largely to a benevolent coach called Dan Holzmann.

"If it wasn't for him, who knows what would have happened," said Ivanovic. "It was a time the situation in Serbia was not good financially. It was very tough for my parents to support me."

As the country began to disintegrate into ethnic wars, Djokovic and Ivanovic were both four years old, while Jankovic was six.

"During the bombing everyone was trying to get their children out of the country," says a Serbian journalist at Roland Garros. "I was in New York and I was asked to take a nephew. Jankovic and her mother went to Florida but her father and brother did not go. The father had to send money to keep them going."

Whether Ivanovic has learned enough over the years to beat the more multi-dimensional game of Henin and continue her golden run is open to question. The top seed is seeking her third title in succession and Ivanovic looked nervous against Sharapova, when she served for the first set of her semi-final.

In contrast, Henin's destruction of Jankovic, generally regarded as the better player of the two Serbs, was almost flawless. Still, Ivanovic is the first player representing Serbia in a Grand Slam final (Monica Seles was a Serb but represented Yugoslavia). But she will probably not be the last.