A beaming Avram Grant was having his picture taken with a champion's trophy on Saturday. Before Chelsea supporters wonder if the Ricard has flowed too freely or the past three weeks were a miserable illusion, it should be said that their former first-team coach was holding the replica of the French Open winner's cup that will have pride of place on Ana Ivanovic's mantelpiece for ever.

Grant has been in Paris for the past couple of days as a guest of Dan Holzmann, an Israeli-born businessman and long-time friend, who dipped into his pocket to the extent of £15,000 a month when Ivanovic was 15 and he had been taken with her determination to strike it rich in the women's game. She chose to move to Basle, where Holzmann is based, and said that she would pay him back everything she owed over time. The fruits of that optimism were delivered in full here where she won her first grand-slam tournament title and became the latest No 1 on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.

As Ivanovic emerged from the back-slapping throng in the bowels of the stadium, she walked across to Holzmann and Grant and hugged them both. “I am so nervous, look at my hands shaking,” she said. Holzmann simply told her that today was just the beginning. Grant smiled again - he does smile, you know.

He emphasised he has always had a great affection for tennis, that he attended Boris Becker's first Wimbledon victory, in 1985, that he would love to meet Roger Federer and that the sport presents to him a fascinating insight into the deepest psyche of an individual's personality and is so very different from having to mesh 11 people and their egos into a winning football team. “Ana is an exceptional person, so strong and determined,” Grant said.

Ivanovic may not have been able to strut a grand-slam tournament final stage once, let alone three times, were it not for Holzmann's benevolence and the Serb remarked that it is “so amazing” that he did what he did for her with absolutely nothing but a hunch to go on. Holzmann admitted to having a tear in his eye at the conclusion of Ivanovic's 6-4, 6-3 victory over Dinara Safina, of Russia.

Now their thoughts turn to the grass. “It is so different, the points are so much faster, you have to be on the ball from the first point and I'm sure my fitness coach will have quite a few new moves for me to try,” Ivanovic said. “You can loop the ball up here, but not on grass. There are always a few muscle strains after the first couple of days.”