Clijsters at the 2002 US Open
Kim Clijsters [Klay'-sterce] , (born on June 8, 1983) is a Belgian tennis player. On 10 august , 2003 she achieved the number one spot on the WTA singles rankings, but subsequently lost it to fellow Belgian Justine Henin-Hardenne.
Tennis career
Clijsters was an accomplished junior player. In 1998, she was the runner-up in the Wimbledon junior singles event. She also won the French Open junior doubles event with Jelena Dokic and the US Open junior doubles event with Eva Dyrberg , and finished the year ranked number 11 in singles and number 4 in doubles in the ITF junior world rankings.
In 1999, Clijsters made the breakthrough into the senior ranks of women's tennis. At Wimbledon, she played through the qualifying rounds to make the main draw and beat Amanda Coetzer en route to the fourth round, where she lost to her childhood idol Steffi Graf. Later that summer, Clijsters reached the third round of the US Open, where at one stage she served for the match against, but ultimately lost to, the eventual champion Serena Williams. In the autumn of 1999, Clijsters won her first WTA singles title at Luxembourg, and then her first WTA doubles title at Bratislava, partnering with Laurence Courtois.
She climbed her way up the rankings over the next couple of years. She reached her first Grand Slam final at the 2001 French Open, where she lost an extremely close match to Jennifer Capriati by a score of 12-10 in the final set. Her next important breakthrough came at the end of 2002, when she won the year-end WTA Tour Championships in Los Angeles, scoring a huge win in the final over the world number one at the time, Serena Williams.
Clijsters had the most successful year of her career so far in 2003. She won nine tournaments that year, including the WTA championships, reached two Grand Slam finals at the French Open and the US Open, losing on both occasions to her compatriot Justine Henin-Hardenne, and was ranked number one in the world for several weeks, although she eventually finished the season at number two behind Henin-Hardenne.
Clijsters started 2004 by reaching her fourth Grand Slam final at the Australian Open, where she lost again to Henin-Hardenne; and then went on a very successful run where she won two titles at the Paris and Antwerp. Unfortunately, Clijsters then began to have injury problems with her wrist, which eventually required surgery and forced her to withdraw from the rest of the 2004 Grand Slam tournaments.
In February 2005, after almost a year of inactivity caused by injuries, she made her return to the WTA tour by participating in her home country tournament at Antwerp. She then completed a stunning comeback to the top echelon of tennis when she won, as an unseeded player, 14 straight matches against world's top players to claim two Tier I titles (Indian Wells and Miami) in March, 2005.
Clijsters has won 23 singles titles in her career so far. Two of those came at the prestigious year-ending WTA Tour Championships, affirming the fact that even though she hasn't won any Grand Slams, she is quite capable of winning a tournament that features only the top eight women players in the world.
Records
2004
- She became the second women to reach at least the semifinals of all the tournaments she entered (exept for her second round defeat in Toronto). Only Monica Seles duplicated that feat.
- When she became world number one in August she not only became the first Belgian - man or woman - to accomplish that feat, she also became the first world number one without a Grand Slam victory (a feat later duplicated by Frenchwoman Amelie Mauresmo) and one of the few women to be both world number one in singles and doubles.
2005
- By winning in Indian Wells in 2005, she became the lowest ranked (No. 133) player ever to win a Tier-I event. In the final she beat American Lindsay Davenport in three sets: 6-4, 4-6, 6-2. This was Clijsters' second tournament after almost a year of inactivity. En route to victory she also defeated world no. 4 Elena Dementieva in the semifinals.
- In Miami she became only the second player since Steffi Graf (1994-1996) in history to win the Indian Wells-Miami double. En route to victory she beat world no. 5 Dementieva in the quaterfinals, no. 2 Mauresmo in the semifinals, and world no. 3 Sharapova in the final.
Family life
She announced her engagement to long-time partner Australian player Lleyton Hewitt in November 2003, but they split up in October 2004.
She also has a younger sister named Elke, who like her sister was an accomplished junior player, and who finished 2002 as the ITF World Junior Doubles champion, but back injuries forced Elke to retire from her professional tennis career in 2004.
Grand Slam achievements
Titles (34)
| Legend (Singles) |
| Grand Slam (0) |
| WTA Championships (2) |
| Tier I Event (4) |
| WTA Tour (17) |
Singles (23)
Performance Timeline
| Tournament |
2005
|
2004
|
2003
|
2002
|
2001
|
2000
|
1999
|
Career |
|
Australian Open
|
- |
F |
SF |
SF |
4r |
1r |
- |
0 |
|
Roland Garros
|
|
- |
F |
3r |
F |
1r |
- |
0 |
|
Wimbledon
|
|
- |
SF |
2r |
QF |
2r |
4r |
0 |
|
US Open
|
|
- |
F |
4r |
QF |
2r |
3r |
0 |
|
WTA Tour Championships
|
|
- |
W |
W |
SF |
QF |
- |
2 |
| Finals reached |
2 |
3 |
15 |
6 |
6 |
3 |
2 |
35 |
| Tournaments Won |
2 |
2 |
9 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
23 |
| Hardcourt Win-Loss |
16-1 |
17-2 |
62-8 |
33-11 |
28-11 |
17-9 |
6-2 |
166-35 |
| Clay Win-Loss |
0-0 |
3-0 |
17-2 |
10-3 |
15-5 |
1-2 |
2-2 |
48-14 |
| Grass Win-Loss |
0-0 |
0-0 |
9-1 |
2-2 |
7-2 |
2-2 |
3-1 |
23-8 |
| Carpet Win-Loss |
0-0 |
0-0 |
2-1 |
6-1 |
8-0 |
10-4 |
8-2 |
34-8 |
| Overall Win-Loss |
16-1 |
20-2 |
90-12 |
51-17 |
58-18 |
30-17 |
19-7 |
271-74 |
| Year End Ranking |
|
22 |
2 |
4 |
5 |
18 |
47 |
N/A |
Doubles (11)
See also
External link
Last updated: 05-07-2005 11:19:49
Last updated: 05-13-2005 07:56:04
