Kim Clijsters Wins First Match Back on Tour
Evonne Goolagong was a mother when she won Wimbledon in 1980 and Lindsay Davenport returned to the Tour a couple months after having her first child, but Kim Clijsters’s return is on a different level. Over two years away from the game, a year and a half after having her daughter… it’s all uncharted territory for Clijsters, but also very familiar at the same
time… a tennis court, a match against a top twenty player. After only an hour and twenty two minutes, Clijsters had recorded her first match victory Monday night over twelfth-seeded, Marion Bartoli, 6-4, 6-3. Kim started strongly winning twelve of the first fifteen points en route to a 4-0 first set lead and ended up with fourteen winners in the first set. Clearly, her forty-nine percent first serve percentage, eight double faults and thirty-one unforced errors could be improved, but Kim did save eighty percent of the break points she faced and won sixty-seven percent of the break points she earned. Not too shabby for the first match!
During her “first career,” Clijsters won 427 singles matches and collected thirty-four singles titles including the 2005 U.S. Open. Kim also spent nineteen weeks in 2003 as the Number One ranked player and earned over $14 million in prize money, as well as millions more in off-court endorsements. This time around, her former Belgian foe, Justine Henin, has retired. Clijsters won ten of twenty two matches against Henin, but Kim lost three Grand Slam finals to Henin at the French Open, U.S. Open and Australian Open and was 2-5 against Henin overall in Grand Slams. Clijsters was also 1-7 versus Serena Williams, 4-6 versus Venus Williams and 4-3 versus Maria Sharapova. However, the landscape at the very top of women’s tennis has changed a lot in the two years that Clijsters was off the Tour and there remains a lot of movement in the top ten rankings. Clearly, there is room for Clijsters at the top of the women’s game, if she can return to her previous level.
During her “first career,” Clijsters won 427 singles matches and collected thirty-four singles titles including the 2005 U.S. Open. Kim also spent nineteen weeks in 2003 as the Number One ranked player and earned over $14 million in prize money, as well as millions more in off-court endorsements. This time around, her former Belgian foe, Justine Henin, has retired. Clijsters won ten of twenty two matches against Henin, but Kim lost three Grand Slam finals to Henin at the French Open, U.S. Open and Australian Open and was 2-5 against Henin overall in Grand Slams. Clijsters was also 1-7 versus Serena Williams, 4-6 versus Venus Williams and 4-3 versus Maria Sharapova. However, the landscape at the very top of women’s tennis has changed a lot in the two years that Clijsters was off the Tour and there remains a lot of movement in the top ten rankings. Clearly, there is room for Clijsters at the top of the women’s game, if she can return to her previous level.
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