Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters ( born 8 June 1983) is a Belgian professional tennis player. As of 4 July 2011, Clijsters will be ranked No. 2 in singles. Clijsters is a former World No. 1 in both singles and doubles.
Clijsters is the reigning singles champion at the US Open and the Australian Open. She has also won 41 WTA singles titles and 11 WTA doubles titles. She has won four Grand Slam singles titles: three at the US Open, in 2005, 2009 and 2010 and one at the Australian Open in 2011. She has also been runner-up in four Grand Slam singles tournaments, and won the WTA Tour Championships singles title in 2002, 2003 and 2010. In doubles, she won the French Open and Wimbledon titles in 2003. Clijsters announced her retirement with immediate effect on 6 May 2007, but almost two years later, on 26 March 2009, she publicly declared her intent to return to the WTA tour for the 2009 summer hard court season. In only her third tournament back, she won her second US Open title, becoming the first unseeded player and wildcard to win the tournament, and the first mother to win a major since Evonne Goolagong in 1980.
Clijsters was born on 8 June 1983, in Bilzen, Limburg, in the Flemish Region of Belgium. She is the daughter of Lei Clijsters, a former international footballer, and Els Vandecaetsbeek, a former national gymnastics champion. Lei Clijsters died of skin cancer on 4 January 2009. Clijsters says that she inherited footballer's legs from her father and a gymnast's flexibility from her mother. Kim's younger sister Elke finished 2002 as the ITF World Junior Doubles champion and retired in 2004 after back injuries.
In December 2003, Clijsters announced her engagement to Australian Lleyton Hewitt, but their relationship ended in October 2004. Clijsters is still affectionately nicknamed "Aussie Kim" by Australians. In October 2006, Clijsters announced her engagement to American basketball player Brian Lynch, who is based in Clijsters' hometown of Bree. In an interview with Sportweekend (a sports programme on Belgian Flemish television), Clijsters said that she was retiring to start a family. Clijsters and Lynch married privately on 13 July 2007, at 6 am at the Bree city hall. She was married by the mayor, with sister Elke, Lynch's brother Pat Lynch, and both sets of parents present. Clijsters gave birth to a daughter on 27 February 2008, at 1:35 pm at the Vesalius hospital in Tongeren, Belgium.
In 1999, Clijsters made her breakthrough professionally. At her first WTA tournament in Antwerp, she qualified and lost to the eventual finalist Sarah Pitkowski-Malcor in the quarterfinal after failing to convert a matchpoint. Playing through the qualifying rounds at Roehampton, only after four others had dropped out, she made it through the main draw of Wimbledon. Clijsters won six matches in a row while only losing 25 games.
She defeated tenth ranked Amanda Coetzer en route to the fourth round, during which Clijsters lost to her childhood idol Steffi Graf in straight sets, in difficult rainy circumstances. 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. At the end of the year, she was granted the WTA Most Impressive Newcomer award, the only Belgian player to have received this trophy.
Clijsters started her 2010 campaign at the Brisbane International in Australia as the top seed. She defeated Tathiana Garbin and Alicia Molik in the first two rounds without dropping a set. She then defeated Lucie Šafářová in three sets to advance to the semifinals where she defeated Andrea Petkovic to set up a final with her rival and compatriot Justine Henin. Clijsters led 6–3, 4–1 before Henin won eight consecutive games to take the second set and lead 3–0 in the final set. Clijsters trailed 5–3 saved two match points before breaking back and forcing a final set tie break defeating her rival 6–3, 4–6, 7–6(6).
Clijsters' next tournament was the 2010 Australian Open, the first Grand Slam of the season where she was seeded 15th. Clijsters advanced to the third round with straight sets wins over Valérie Tétreault and Tamarine Tanasugarn. In the third round Clijsters lost to the World No. 20 Nadia Petrova winning just one game in the worst defeat of her career.
Clijsters did not play competitively again until March at the 2010 BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. She was seeded 14th but fell to the 23rd seed Alisa Kleybanova in the third round, losing a final set tie break.Clijsters found form at the 2010 Sony Ericsson Open as she went on to win the title. As the 14th seed, she only dropped three games while defeating Petra Kvitová and Shahar Pe'er.
Clijsters then defeated the defending champion Victoria Azarenka, losing just four games. Next she defeated the World No. 10 Samantha Stosur in the quarter-finals and Justine Henin in a final set tie break to reach the final. Clijsters went on to beat Venus Williams in straight sets in the final, ending the American's fifteen match unbeaten streak. As a result of winning the title for the second time, Clijsters' ranking rose to World No. 10.
Clijsters' first competitive outing of the year was the Medibank International Sydney in Australia. In the first round, Clijsters defeated Alexandra Dulgheru in two sets, 6–1, 6–2. She then defeated Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová, Victoria Azarenka and Alisa Kleybanova to advanced to the final where she was defeated by World No. 11 Li Na from China, 7–6(3), 6–3, despite leading 5–0 in the first set.
Clijsters started her strong campaign at the 2011 Australian Open at Melbourne Park as the tournament's favorite with an emphatic 6–0, 6–0 victory over former World No. 1 Dinara Safina in the first round. This was the first time in tennis' open era that a former World No. 1 player received a double bagel loss in a grand slam tournament. Clijsters then defeated Carla Suárez Navarro 6–1, 6–3 and Alizé Cornet 7–6(3), 6–3, before winning a fourth-round match against Russia's Ekaterina Makarova 7–6(3), 6–2. In the quarterfinals, Clijsters continued her progress without dropping a set by beating the twelfth seed Agnieszka Radwańska 6–3, 7–6(4).
On 21 April 2011, Clijsters was elected number 16 on the Time Top 100 list of most influential people, the first sports person on the 2011 listing. Her sportsmanship, involvement in charity, success as a mother combined with her anti-diva no-nonsense attitude led to her election.
Clijsters suffered an ankle injury while dancing at a wedding and missed most of the clay court season before the 2011 French Open. Clijsters was the second seed in the Roland Garros draw. She was defeated by Arantxa Rus in the second round, 3–6, 7–5, 6–1, after leading 6–3, 5–2 and having two match points. Clijsters suffered a further ankle injury in the UNICEF Open, which forced her to withdraw from the 2011 Wimbledon Championships.
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