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Kim Clijsters

Country (sports)	Belgium
Residence	Bree, Belgium
Height	1.74 m (5 ft 8+1⁄2 in)
Turned pro	17 August 1997
Retired	6 May 2007
Plays	Right; Two-handed backhand
Prize money	US$14,764,296
Singles
Career record	427–104
Career titles	34 WTA (13th in overall rankings), 3 ITF
Highest ranking	No. 1 (11 August 2003)
Grand Slam singles results
Australian Open	F (2004)
French Open	F (2001, 2003)
Wimbledon	SF (2003, 2006)
US Open	W (2005)
Other tournaments
Tour Finals	W (2002, 2003)
Doubles
Career record	129–50
Career titles	11 WTA, 3 ITF
Highest ranking	No. 1 (4 August 2003)
Grand Slam doubles results
Australian Open	QF (2003)
French Open	W (2003)
Wimbledon	W (2003)
US Open	QF (2002)
Last updated on: 7 May 2007.

Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters (Template:IPA2, listen; born 8 June 1983, in Bilzen, Limburg) is a retired Belgian tennis player. She is a former World No. 1 ranked player in singles and in doubles.

During her professional career, Clijsters won 34 WTA singles titles and 11 WTA doubles titles. She won the US Open singles title in 2005 and the WTA Tour Championships singles title in 2002 and 2003. In doubles, she won the French Open and Wimbledon titles in 2003. Clijsters was twice a singles runner-up at the French Open and a one-time runner-up at the Australian Open, also reaching two Wimbledon singles semifinals. She announced her retirement with immediate effect on 6 May 2007.

Playing style

Clijsters, known as Aussie Kim, Kim Kong, Killing Kim, or Kim Possible to many fans, was recognized for her deep, powerful, well-placed groundstrokes, as well as her court-wide defense, characterized by speed and athleticism. Clijsters, along with Jelena Jankovic, was among the few tennis players on either the Association of Tennis Professionals or Women's Tennis Association tours who could slide (known as the straddle) on all surfaces. After being defeated by Clijsters in the 2005 Nasdaq-100 Open, Maria Sharapova implied that Clijsters's strength lies in how she always forces her opponent to hit an extra shot, that "you just have to expect that she's going to get every ball back".

Clijsters was considered by some critics to be "too nice". In response to these critics, she replied, "You don't have to hate your opponents to beat them."

Family life

Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters was born on 8 June 1983, in Bilzen, in the Flemish Region of Belgium. She is the daughter of a successful football player, Lei Clijsters, and a national gymnastics champion, Els Vandecaetsbeek. Clijsters claims to have inherited footballer's legs from her father and a gymnast's flexibility from her mother. Clijsters' younger sister Elke finished 2002 as the ITF World Junior Doubles champion and retired in 2004 after back injuries.

In November 2003, Clijsters announced her engagement to Australian tennis player Lleyton Hewitt, but their relationship ended in October 2004.

In October 2006, Clijsters announced her engagement to American basketball player Brian Lynch, who is based in Clijsters's hometown of Bree. In an interview with "Sportweekend," Clijsters stated that she was retiring to start a family. Clijsters and Lynch married secretly on 13 July 2007, at 6:00 in the morning at the Bree city hall. She was married by the mayor, with sister Elke Clijsters, Lynch's brother Pat Lynch, and both families' parents present.

Clijsters gave birth to a daughter on 27 February 2008, at 1:35 PM at the Vesaliushospital in Tongeren, Belgium. The girl, Jada Ellie, weighed 3.035 kg and measured 51 cm. Clijsters's mother gave birth to a son, Zeth, after Jada Ellie was born.

Tennis career

Clijsters was an accomplished junior player. In singles, she finished as runner-up in the 1998 Wimbledon junior event, placing 11th in the year-end singles ranking. In the same year in doubles, Clijsters won the French Open title with Jelena Dokić, and the US Open with Eva Dyrberg, ending the season as number four in the International Tennis Federation junior doubles world ranking.

In 1999, Clijsters made her breakthrough professionally. Playing through the qualifying rounds, she made it through the main draw of Wimbledon, wherein she defeated tenth ranked Amanda Coetzer en route to the fourth round, where Clijsters lost to her childhood idol Steffi Graf. Later that summer, Clijsters reached the third round of the US Open, losing to eventual champion Serena Williams after serving for the match. In the autumn, Clijsters won her first Women's Tennis Association (WTA) singles title at Luxembourg. She followed up with her first WTA doubles title at Bratislava, partnering Laurence Courtois.

Clijsters climbed up the rankings over the next couple of years. In 2001, she reached her first Grand Slam final at the French Open, where she lost to Jennifer Capriati 12–10 in the third set. This two-hour, 21-minute match featured the longest third set in a French Open women's final. Clijsters was four times within two points of winning before Capriati prevailed. Her next important breakthrough came at the end of 2002, when she won the year-end Home Depot Championships in Los Angeles, defeating top ranked Serena Williams in the final. This was only the fifth defeat of the year for Williams and snapped her 18-match winning streak. On her way to the final, Clijsters defeated fourth ranked Justine Henin and second ranked Venus Williams, becoming just the fourth player to beat both of the Williams sisters in the same event. She also equaled the event's record for the fewest games dropped.

Clijsters won nine singles tournaments and seven doubles titles in 2003, including the WTA Tour Championships and two Tier I singles tournaments. She also reached two Grand Slam singles finals, losing at both the French Open and the US Open to Henin. At the Australian Open, Clijsters lost in the semifinals to Serena Williams 4–6, 6–3, 7–5 after Clijsters led 5–1 in the third set and held a match point at 5–2. She also lost in the semifinals of Wimbledon. Her Tier I singles titles were at the Telecom Italia Masters in Rome, where she defeated Amélie Mauresmo in the final, and at the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, California, where she defeated Lindsay Davenport in the final. On 11 August 2003, Clijsters attained the World No. 1 ranking, holding the spot for 12 non-consecutive weeks during the remainder of the year, and was the first player to be top ranked by the WTA without first winning a Grand Slam singles title. The World No. 1 ranking was at stake in October during the final of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Filderstadt, Germany. Clijsters rallied from a set down to beat Henin. The match marked only the eighth time that the top two players battled for the top ranking. Even though Clijsters won that match, she finished the year ranked World No. 2, just behind Henin.

Clijsters started 2004 by reaching her fourth career Grand Slam final at the Australian Open, where she lost once more to Henin. She then won two consecutive titles in Paris and Antwerp. While defending her Tier I title at the Pacific Life Open, however, Clijsters began to have problems with her wrist, eventually requiring surgery and forcing her to withdraw from most tournaments. She attempted a comeback towards the end of the year, winning several matches, before reaggravating the injury.

2005

In February, after almost a year of inactivity caused by injuries, she made her return to the Women's Tennis Association tour by participating in her home country tournament at Antwerp, losing to Venus Williams in a quarterfinal. She then completed her comeback in March and April when she won, as an unseeded player, 14 straight matches to claim two Tier I titles and regained a top-20 ranking. At the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, California, Clijsters was ranked World No. 133 but defeated World No. 5 Elena Dementieva in the semifinals and World No. 1 Lindsay Davenport in the final. Immediately after that win, Clijsters defeated four top-6 players in straight sets to win the NASDAQ-100 Open in Key Biscayne, Florida. Clijsters joined Steffi Graf as the only women to win the Indian Wells-Key Biscayne double. After losing to Clijsters in the Key Biscayne final, Maria Sharapova said, "I think the biggest surprise was that it was her 14th match and yet I didn’t feel like she was physically fatigued at all. She is a very strong girl and she can play all day. Running from corner to corner is like a piece of cake for her."

Clijsters finally won a Grand Slam singles title at the US Open. It was her first victory after reaching four Grand Slam finals previously. Clijsters defeated tenth-seeded Venus Williams in the quarterfinals 4–6, 7–5, 6–1, winning 11 of the last 13 games after Williams had led 6–4, 4–2. Clijsters also needed three sets to defeat top-seeded Sharapova in the semifinals but needed only two sets to defeat Mary Pierce in the final. By winning the US Open Series — a string of summer tournaments in North America before the US Open itself — Clijsters received a 100 percent bonus to the US$1.1 million in prize money she received for winning the US Open. Her US$2.2 million paycheck was the largest payday in women's sports history.

On September 15, within days after her US Open victory, it was announced that the cooperation between Clijsters and her coach, Marc Dehous, would come to an end. Dehous thought that it was time to do something else.

At the year-ending Sony Ericsson Championships, Clijsters was eliminated after only two matches. She lost her first match to Pierce 6–1, 4–6, 7–6 and her second match to Amélie Mauresmo 6–3, 7–6. Clijsters said in interviews that her defeats were due to fatigue and maybe jet lag, having had a relatively short time to adjust and acclimatize before the tournament began. Although she won her third match in the round-robin tournament against Dementieva, it was considered a dead rubber.

Overall, she won nine singles events in 2005, her last one being at the Gaz de France Stars in Hasselt. She ended the year ranked World No. 2.

2006

Clijsters started the year by winning an exhibition tournament, the Watson Water Challenge, in Hong Kong. On her way to the title she defeated Jie Zheng, Elena Dementieva, and top ranked Lindsay Davenport.

Clijsters then withdrew from her semifinal match at the WTA tournament in Sydney, citing a left hip muscle strain.

At the Australian Open, Clijsters defeated former champion Martina Hingis in the quarterfinals 6–3, 2–6, 6–4 before retiring from her semifinal match with Amélie Mauresmo. Despite the loss, the ranking points she accumulated were enough to regain the World No. 1 ranking, a position she last held on 9 November 2003. She was the first tennis player, male or female, to rise from outside the Top 100 (World No. 134) to World No. 1 in less than a year. Clijsters' loss to Mauresmo in the Australian Open semifinals was due to an ankle injury. Although she had been expected to miss at least eight weeks to recover, Clijsters returned two weeks later at the Proximus Diamond Games in Antwerp. She lost the final of that tournament to Mauresmo in three sets.

Clijsters won her first title of the year at a clay court event in Warsaw, defeating Svetlana Kuznetsova in the final. At the French Open in May, Clijsters reached the semifinals without losing a set, defeating Hingis in the quarterfinals 7–6, 6–1. However, she lost to Justine Henin in the semifinals 6–3, 6–2 on her 23rd birthday.

She was seeded second going into Wimbledon but was again eliminated in the semifinals by Henin.

Clijsters collected her second title of the year as the top seed in Stanford, defeating Patty Schnyder in the final. Clijsters then reached the final in San Diego, falling to second-seeded Maria Sharapova in straight sets. This was her first loss to Sharapova in five career meetings.

On August 16, after receiving a first round bye at the Tier I Rogers Cup in Montreal, Clijsters faced Canadian Stéphanie Dubois in the second round. Having won the first set 6–1 and trailing 2–3 in the second set, Clijsters slipped and fell on her left wrist and was forced to retire from the match. On 18 August 2006, Clijsters announced on her official website that the condition of her wrist was worse than she had expected and that she would be unable to defend her title at the US Open. She also missed the Fed Cup final against Italy, which Italy won 3–2.

At the Gaz de France Stars, her first tournament in more than two months, Clijsters successfully defended her title by beating qualifier Kaia Kanepi in the final. At the year-ending WTA Tour Championships, Clijsters lost a semifinal to Mauresmo 6–2, 3–6, 6–3 after defeating Dementieva and Kuznetsova and losing to Sharapova in the round robin phase of the tournament.

2007

Clijsters started her final year of professional tennis by winning an exhibition tournament, the Watson Water Challenge, in Hong Kong. On her way to the title, she defeated Jie Zheng, Patty Schnyder, and top ranked Maria Sharapova.

Clijsters then won the Medibank International in Sydney, Australia, defeating Jelena Janković in the final after being down a match point.

At the Australian Open, the fourth seeded Clijsters defeated sixth seeded Martina Hingis in a quarterfinal match before losing to Sharapova in a semifinal 6–4, 6–2.

She played her last tournament in Belgium at the Proximus Diamond Games in Antwerp, where she lost to Amelie Mauresmo in the final. At the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, Florida, Clijsters lost in the fourth round to Li Na 4–6, 6–4, 6–2.

In May, she failed to defend her title in Warsaw, losing in the second round to Julia Vakulenko 7–6(3), 6–3. This was Clijsters's last professional match.

On 6 May 2007, citing injuries, Clijsters announced on her official website that she was retiring from professional tennis immediately, concluding a career highlighted by her 2005 US Open singles title.

Coaches

• 1992-1996: Bart Van Kerckhove
• 1996-2002: Carl Maes
• 2002-2005: Marc Dehous

Records

This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. Please relocate any relevant information into other sections or articles.

2003

• Clijsters became not only the first Belgian — man or woman — to be ranked World No. 1, but also did it without winning a Grand Slam tournament. Clijsters also is one of the few women to be World No. 1 in both singles and doubles.

• Clijsters compiled a 90–12 singles record. Her singles win total was the highest single-season total by any woman since 1982. Clijsters was the first woman to play more than 100 singles matches in a year since 1974.

2005

• By winning in Indian Wells, California, Clijsters became the lowest ranked player (World No. 133) ever to win a Tier I event. In the final, she beat top ranked Lindsay Davenport 6–4, 4–6, 6–2. She was the lowest ranked player to defeat a reigning World No. 1 since 1975, a record that was broken when Julie Coin defeated Ana Ivanovic at the 2008 US Open.

• In Key Biscayne, Florida, Clijsters became only the second player (the first being Steffi Graf in 1995 and 1996) to win the Indian Wells-Key Biscayne double. En route to victory, she beat the sixth (Anastasia Myskina), fifth (Elena Dementieva), second (Amélie Mauresmo), and third (Maria Sharapova) seeds in consecutive matches. She was the first unseeded winner of the tournament and did not lose a set in the tournament.

• Following Clijsters's victory in the US Open Series and the subsequent US Open, she collected US$2.2 million in prize money, the largest paycheck in women's sports history. To that date, she held a North American hardcourt win-loss record of 36–1, the most matches ever won on that surface during a season.

• Clijsters had a 22-match winning streak from August to October. During the streak, she won tournaments in Los Angeles, Toronto, and Luxembourg and the US Open.

2006

• In returning to the World No. 1 ranking after the Australian Open in January, Clijsters broke a rankings record. She was ranked as low as World No. 134 in March 2005, so her return to the top spot in a ten-month span was the fastest and biggest leap in women's tennis history.

Awards

Clijsters is considered by her peers as one of the most likeable players on tour. This, combined with her accomplishments on court, has earned her numerous citations:

Grand Slam singles finals

Win (1)

Year	Championship	Opponent in final	Score in final
2005	US Open	Mary Pierce	6–3, 6–1

Runner-ups (4)

Year	Championship	Opponent in final	Score in final
2001	French Open	Jennifer Capriati	1–6, 6–4, 12–10
2003	French Open (2nd)	Justine Henin	6–0, 6–4
2003	US Open	Justine Henin	7–5, 6–1
2004	Australian Open	Justine Henin	6–3, 4–6, 6–3

WTA Tour titles (45)

Singles wins (34)

No.	Date	Tournament name	Location	Surface	Opponent in final	Score in final
1.	20 September 1999	SEAT Open (1)	Luxembourg City, Luxembourg	Carpet	Dominique Monami	6–2, 6–2
2.	10 January 2000	Tasmanian International	Hobart, Australia	Hard	Chanda Rubin	2–6, 6–2, 6–2
3.	30 October 2000	Sparkassen Cup (1)	Leipzig, Germany	Carpet	Elena Likhovtseva	7–6(6), 4–6, 6–4
4.	23 July 2001	Bank of the West Classic (1)	Stanford, California, U.S.	Hard	Lindsay Davenport	6–4, 6–7(5), 6–1
5.	24 September 2001	Sparkassen Cup (2)	Leipzig, Germany	Carpet	Magdalena Maleeva	6–1, 6–1
6.	22 October 2001	SEAT Open (2)	Luxembourg City, Luxembourg	Hard	Lisa Raymond	6–2, 6–2
7.	29 April 2002	Betty Barclay Cup	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Venus Williams	1–6, 6–3, 6–4
8.	7 October 2002	Porsche Tennis Grand Prix (1)	Filderstadt, Germany	Hard	Daniela Hantuchová	4–6, 6–3, 6–4
9.	21 October 2002	SEAT Open (3)	Luxembourg City, Luxembourg	Hard	Magdalena Maleeva	6–1, 6–2
10.	4 November 2002	Home Depot Championships (1)	Los Angeles	Carpet	Serena Williams	7–5, 6–3
11.	6 January 2003	adidas International (1)	Sydney, Australia	Hard	Lindsay Davenport	6–4, 6–3
12.	3 March 2003	Pacific Life Open (1)	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard	Lindsay Davenport	6–4, 7–5
13.	12 May 2003	Telecom Italia Masters	Rome	Clay	Amélie Mauresmo	3–6, 7–6(3), 6–0
14.	16 June 2003	Ordina Open	's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands	Grass	Justine Henin	6–7(4), 3–0 retired
15.	21 July 2003	Bank of the West Classic (2)	Stanford, California, U.S.	Hard	Jennifer Capriati	4–6, 6–4, 6–2
16.	4 August 2003	JPMorgan Chase Open (1)	Los Angeles	Hard	Lindsay Davenport	6–1, 3–6, 6–1
17.	6 October 2003	Porsche Tennis Grand Prix (2)	Filderstadt, Germany	Hard	Justine Henin	5–7, 6–4, 6–2
18.	20 October 2003	SEAT Open (4)	Luxembourg City, Luxembourg	Hard	Chanda Rubin	6–2, 7–5
19.	3 November 2003	WTA Tour Championships (2)	Los Angeles	Hard	Amélie Mauresmo	6–2, 6–0
20.	9 February 2004	Open Gaz de France	Paris	Carpet	Mary Pierce	6–2, 6–1
21.	16 February 2004	Proximus Diamond Games	Antwerp, Belgium	Carpet	Silvia Farina Elia	6–3, 6–0
22.	7 March 2005	Pacific Life Open (2)	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard	Lindsay Davenport	6–4, 4–6, 6–2
23.	23 March 2005	NASDAQ-100 Open	Key Biscayne, Florida, U.S.	Hard	Maria Sharapova	6–3, 7–5
24.	13 June 2005	Hastings Direct International Championships	Eastbourne, United Kingdom	Grass	Vera Douchevina	7–5, 6–0
25.	1 August 2005	Bank of the West Classic (3)	Stanford, California, U.S.	Hard	Venus Williams	7–5, 6–2
26.	8 August 2005	JPMorgan Chase Open (2)	Los Angeles	Hard	Daniela Hantuchová	6–4, 6–1
27.	15 August 2005	Rogers Cup	Toronto, Canada	Hard	Justine Henin	7–5, 6–1
28.	10 September 2005	US Open	New York City	Hard	Mary Pierce	6–3, 6–1
29.	2 October 2005	FORTIS Championships (5)	Luxembourg City, Luxembourg	Hard	Anna-Lena Grönefeld	6–2, 6–4
30.	30 October 2005	Gaz de France Stars (1)	Hasselt, Belgium	Hard	Francesca Schiavone	6–2, 6–3
31.	7 May 2006	J&S Cup	Warsaw, Poland	Clay	Svetlana Kuznetsova	7–5, 6–2
32.	30 July 2006	Bank of the West Classic (4)	Stanford, California, U.S.	Hard	Patty Schnyder	6–4, 6–2
33.	5 November 2006	Gaz de France Stars (2)	Hasselt, Belgium	Hard	Kaia Kanepi	6–3, 3–6, 6–4
34.	12 January 2007	Medibank International (2)	Sydney, Australia	Hard	Jelena Janković	4–6, 7–6(1), 6–4

Doubles wins (11)

No.	Date	Tournament	Partnering	Opponents in the final	Score
1.	27 October 1999	Bratislava, Slovakia	Laurence Courtois	Olga Barabanschikova and Lilia Osterloh	6–2, 3–6, 7–5
2.	21 May 2000	Antwerp, Belgium	Sabine Appelmans	Jennifer Hopkins and Petra Rampre	6–1, 6–1
3.	12 August 2002	Los Angeles, U.S.	Jelena Dokić	Daniela Hantuchová and Ai Sugiyama	6–3, 6–3
4.	27 October 2002	Luxembourg City, Luxembourg	Janette Husárová	Květa Peschke and Barbara Rittner	4–6, 6–3, 7–5
5.	12 January 2003	Sydney, Australia	Ai Sugiyama	Conchita Martínez and Rennae Stubbs	6–3, 6–3
6.	16 February 2003	Antwerp, Belgium	Ai Sugiyama	Nathalie Dechy and Emilie Loit	6–2, 6–0
7.	2 March 2003	Scottsdale, Arizona, U.S.	Ai Sugiyama	Lindsay Davenport and Lisa Raymond	6–1, 6–4
8.	8 June 2003	French Open, Paris	Ai Sugiyama	Virginia Ruano Pascual and Paola Suárez	6–7, 6–2, 9–7
9.	6 July 2003	Wimbledon, London	Ai Sugiyama	Virginia Ruano Pascual and Paola Suárez	6–4, 6–4
10.	3 August 2003	San Diego, U.S.	Ai Sugiyama	Lindsay Davenport and Lisa Raymond	6–4, 7–5
11.	19 October 2003	Zurich, Switzerland	Ai Sugiyama	Virginia Ruano Pascual and Paola Suárez	7–6, 6–2

WTA Tour runner-ups (27)

Singles (17)

Women's doubles (9)

Mixed doubles (1)

• 2000: Wimbledon (with Lleyton Hewitt)

Singles performance timeline

• A = did not participate in the tournament.
• SR = the ratio of the number of singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played.
• She won three qualifying matches to reach the main draw.
• She lost two round robin matches.
• She lost one round robin match in addition to the semifinal.
• She defaulted her third round match, which is a walkover and does not count as a loss on her official record.
• She lost both a qualifying match and a quarterfinal match at the 1999 tournament in Antwerp.
• She defaulted her 2001 semifinal match in New Haven, which is a walkover and does not count as a loss on her official record.
• Her win-loss record includes all matches listed on the WTA website, including challenger and Fed Cup matches.

WTA Tour career earnings

See also

• List of female tennis players
• List of Grand Slam Women's Singles champions

References

1. ^ Kim's Diary-Thanks you 06-05-2007
2. Kim Clijsters - Game Profile
3. "Comeback Queen Clijsters Triumphs, BBC Sport website (dated 2 April 2005)". Retrieved February 15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
4. Nice Work
5. Face to face by The Guardian (5 October 2003)
6. Hewitt and Clijsters reveal split BBC Sport (22 October 2004)
7. Yahoo! Sports - Sports News, Scores, Rumors, Fantasy Games, and more
8. Retired tennis player Kim Clijsters gives birth to daughter
9. Clijsters takes Italian Open
10. Clijsters wins to keep No. 1 ranking
11. 2005 NASDAQ-100 Open News

External links

• Official website
• Kim Clijsters at the Women's Tennis Association
• Kim Clijsters at IMDb

Template:Persondata

• 1983 births
• Living people
• Belgian tennis players
• US Open champions
• French Open champions
• Wimbledon champions
• Flemish sportspeople