Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters[1] (Dutch pronunciation: [kɪm ˈklɛistərs] (About this soundlisten); born 8 June 1983) is a Belgian professional tennis player. Clijsters was a world No. 1 in both singles and doubles, having held both rankings simultaneously in 2003. She won a total of six Grand Slam tournament titles, four in singles and two in doubles.
Clijsters competed professionally from 1997 to 2012 in an era where her primary rivals were compatriot Justine Henin and 23-time Grand Slam singles champion Serena Williams. Coming from a country with limited success in men's or women's tennis, Clijsters became the first Belgian player to attain the No. 1 ranking. Together with Henin, she established Belgium as a leading force in women's tennis as the two of them led their country to their first Fed Cup crown in 2001 and were the top two players in the world in late 2003. Individually, Clijsters won 41 singles titles and 11 doubles titles on the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Tour. She was a three-time winner of the WTA Tour Championships. Between singles and doubles, she was a champion at all four Grand Slam tournaments, winning the US Open and the Australian Open in singles and Wimbledon and the French Open in doubles with Ai Sugiyama. Her success at majors was highlighted by winning three consecutive appearances at the US Open.
Plagued by injuries and having lost some of her desire to compete, Clijsters initially retired from tennis in 2007 at the age of 23 to get married and have a daughter. She returned to the sport two years later and won her second US Open title as an unranked player in just her third tournament back. She defended her title the following year and then won the Australian Open in 2011 en route to becoming the first mother to be ranked No. 1 by the WTA. Along with Margaret Court, she also holds the record for most Grand Slam singles titles won as a mother, with three such titles, and was the first to win one since Evonne Goolagong Cawley in 1980. She retired from professional tennis a second time after the 2012 US Open, and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2017. In September 2019, Clijsters announced her plans to come back to the tour once again, at the start of the 2020 season.
Clijsters was born to athletic parents with backgrounds in professional football and gymnastics. She was renowned for her athleticism, which was highlighted by her ability to perform splits on court in the middle of points. She built the offensive side of her game around controlled aggression while also using her exceptional movement to become an elite defensive player. Clijsters was very popular and well-liked as a player, having won the Karen Krantzcke Sportsmanship Award eight times.
Early life and background
Clijsters was born on 8 June 1983 in Bilzen, a small town in northeastern Belgium. She grew up with her younger sister Elke in the nearby town of Bree in the Flemish province of Limburg.[2] Kim is the daughter of Lei Clijsters and Els Vandecaetsbeek, both of whom were accomplished athletes. Her mother Els was a Belgian national artistic gymnastics champion. Her father Lei was a professional football defender who played for a variety of clubs in the top-flight Belgian First Division, including KV Mechelen with whom he won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1988. He was also a member of the Belgium national football team, tallying 40 caps and competing in two World Cups.[3][4] Clijsters credits her parents for giving her a footballer's legs and a gymnast's flexibility.[1] She also attributes her success to the freedom they gave her when she was a young player, saying, "Without the support I've had from my family, I wouldn't be where I am. They've let me make my own decisions."[5]
When Clijsters was five years old, her father built a clay tennis court at their home as a gift to his daughter to celebrate him winning the 1988 Gouden Schoen, an award given to the player of the year in the Belgian First Division. He had previously announced the idea of the gift as a celebration of the award during a television interview.[3][6][7] Clijsters began playing tennis earlier that year after attending a lesson with her cousins and her uncle while her parents were away.[2] From then on, she became fixated on the sport. She began playing with her sister at the Tennisdel club in Genk by the time she was seven. Her first coach Bart Van Kerckhoven recalled that she was extremely energetic and never wanted to leave the tennis court, adding that, "If the group before her did some sprints to finish off the session, Kim would join in. Then she put her heart and soul into her own training session, after which she joined the next group for their warm-up exercises."[6]
At the age of nine, Clijsters began working with Benny Vanhoudt in the more distant town of Diest. Along with her sister, she trained for fifteen hours a week, including five hours of individual instruction, which Vanhoudt said was "an insane amount [of total hours]."[8] She continued to train in Diest until she was twelve. During this time, she also first worked with Carl Maes and Wim Fissette, both of whom would coach Clijsters later in her professional career. When she was thirteen, Maes took over as her primary coach at the Flemish Tennis Association in Antwerp.[9]
Junior career
Clijsters had success at both the national and international levels at a very young age. In 1993, she won the 12-and-under division of the Belgian Junior Championships (the Coupe de Borman) in doubles with her future longtime rival Justine Henin. At the time, Clijsters was ten years old and Henin was eleven.[6] A year later, she won the 12-and-under singles event at the same tournament.[10] Clijsters continued to play alongside Henin, winning the doubles event at the 14-and-under European Junior Championships as well as the 14-and-under European Junior Team Championships for Belgium, both in 1996 and the latter of which also with Leslie Butkiewicz.[6][11] Her first big international junior title came at Les Petits As, a high-level 14-and-under tournament. She defeated future top 25 players Iveta Benešová and Elena Bovina in the semifinals and final respectively.[6]
Clijsters played two full seasons on the ITF Junior Circuit, the premier junior tour that is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF). At the very end of 1997, she partnered with Zsófia Gubacsi to win her first ITF title in the doubles event at the Grade A Orange Bowl, one of the highest level junior tournaments.[12] In 1998, Clijsters had her best year on the junior tour, finishing the season at career-high rankings of world No. 11 in singles and world No. 4 in doubles.[13][14] She won two junior Grand Slam doubles titles, the French Open with Jelena Dokic and the US Open with Eva Dyrberg.[15][16] She defeated her French Open partner Dokic in the US Open doubles final.[16] In singles, she made it to the Wimbledon final, but finished runner-up to Katarina Srebotnik.[9]
Professional career
1997–99: Maiden WTA title, Newcomer of the Year
As a fourteen year old, Clijsters could only enter professional tournaments through qualifying since the WTA Tour's policy did not allow players her age to receive main draw wild cards. In August 1997, Clijsters qualified for her first main draw at her second career tournament on the lower-level ITF Women's Circuit, which was held in the Belgian coastal town of Koksijde. She won seven matches in total, including five in qualifying, to reach the quarterfinals. Clijsters did not enter another professional tournament until after her runner-up finish at the Wimbledon girls' singles event the following summer. Playing in Brussels in July 1998, she won both the singles and doubles events for her first career professional titles. Clijsters continued to excel at the ITF level, winning four more titles within the next year, two in both singles and doubles.[9][17]
Clijsters began 1999 with a WTA singles ranking of No. 420 in the world.[18] Around this time, Belgian women's tennis was beginning to flourish. Both Dominique Van Roost and Sabine Appelmans had been ranked in the top 20 within the previous two years, complementing the rise of Clijsters and Henin on the junior tour. This success helped lead to the revival of the only WTA tournament in Belgium, which was relaunched as the Flanders Women's Open in Antwerp after not being held in six years. Clijsters made her WTA debut at the tournament in May, entering the main draw as a lucky loser after losing in the final round of qualifying. She won her first career tour-level match against Miho Saeki and advanced to the quarterfinals, where she was defeated by top seed Sarah Pitkowski despite holding match points.[19]
One week after Clijsters turned sixteen, she entered Wimbledon as the youngest player in the top 200. After barely having a high enough ranking to get into the qualifying draw, she ultimately made it to the round of sixteen in her Grand Slam tournament debut. She defeated world No. 10 Amanda Coetzer in the third round and did not drop a set until losing to Steffi Graf one round later, her only career match against her childhood idol.[2][20][21] Clijsters also had a good showing at the US Open, losing to the eventual champion Serena Williams in the third round after squandering a chance to serve for the match.[21] Clijsters next played at the Luxembourg Open held in the town of Kockelscheuer just outside the capital. She won the title with relative ease in just her fourth career WTA event, taking affinity for the friendly atmosphere of the smaller tournament and the faster carpet courts. Most notably, she faced off against Van Roost in the final and only conceded four games to the top-ranked Belgian.[22] Clijsters also made the singles final in Bratislava at her next tournament, finishing runner-up to No. 11 Amélie Mauresmo. Nonetheless, she was able to win the doubles event with compatriot Laurence Courtois as her partner.[23] At the end of the season, Clijsters was named WTA Newcomer of the Year, having risen to No. 47 in the world.[24]
2000–02: French Open finalist, Tour champion
Clijsters was unable to repeat her success at the Grand Slam tournaments in 2000, not advancing past the second round at any of the singles events.[17] However, she continued her steady climb in the rankings up to No. 18 on the strength of two more titles,[18] one at the Tasmanian International in her first tournament of the year[25] and another at the Sparkassen Cup in Germany near the end of the season.[26] The latter victory was Clijsters's first at a Tier II event (the second highest level tournament) and followed up a loss in another Tier II final to world No. 1 Martina Hingis earlier that month.[27] In the middle of the year, Clijsters also finished runner-up at the Wimbledon mixed doubles event alongside her boyfriend Lleyton Hewitt
At the Indian Wells Open in early 2001, Clijsters finally defeated Hingis in her fourth meeting against the world No. 1 player to reach her first Tier I final.[28] After winning the first set of the final, she ended up losing in three sets to Serena Williams. The match was overshadowed by the controversy of the crowd booing Williams for her sister Venus's late withdrawal from their semifinal, leading to both sisters boycotting the tournament for 14 years.[29][30] A few months later at the French Open, Clijsters became the first Belgian to contest a Grand Slam singles final. She had defeated No. 16 Henin in the semifinals in their closest and highest profile match to date, coming back from a set and a break down, and also having saved three break points that would have put her behind 5–2 in the second set.[31] The final against Australian Open champion and world No. 4 Jennifer Capriati was an even tighter match. Playing a day after her 18th birthday, Clijsters won the first set but lost the second. After a French Open final record 22 games and 2 hours 21 minutes in total, she was defeated by Capriati 12–10 in the deciding set.[32][33] The match was ranked as the greatest French Open women's final in Open Era history by Tennis.com.[33] Clijsters would go on to make it to at least the quarterfinals at each of the next three majors.[17] She also played in her first Grand Slam doubles final at Wimbledon later that year, with Ai Sugiyama as her partner.[34] She won three singles titles in 2001, including her second titles at both the Luxembourg Open and the Sparkassen Cup, to help her finish the season at No. 5 in the world. With four doubles finals in total, she was also ranked No. 15 in doubles at the end of the year.[17][18]
Clijsters maintained her top ten ranking throughout 2002[18] despite struggling with an ongoing shoulder injury in the first half of the year.[35] Her best result at a Grand Slam event came at the Australian Open, where she lost another three-set match to Capriati in the semifinals in their first meeting since the French Open final.[36] Nonetheless, she continued to rise in the rankings to No. 3 by March, her best ranking for the season.[18] Although Clijsters did not reach another Grand Slam quarterfinal the rest of the year, she won three more titles leading up to the year-end WTA Tour Championships in Los Angeles.[17] She received her third invite to the event, which only the top 16 players in the world are guaranteed entry. Clijsters made it to the final with ease after dropping only six games in the first three rounds, including a victory over Henin in the quarterfinals[37] and a retirement due to injury from Venus Williams in the semifinals. Her opponent in the final was Serena Williams, who entered the match with a 56–4 record on the season and having won the last three majors of the year. Although Serena had won their first five encounters and was considered a clear favourite, Clijsters upset Serena in straight sets to win the championship.[38] After the tournament, she said, "This is the best victory of my career."[35]
2003: World No. 1 in singles and doubles
The 2003 season was Clijsters's "annus mirabilis".[39] She competed in 21 singles events, reaching the semifinals in all but one of them, advancing to 15 finals, and winning nine titles. With a record of 90–12, she was the first player to accrue 90 wins since Martina Navratilova in 1982 and the first to play more than 100 matches since Chris Evert in 1974.[40] Clijsters also played an extensive doubles schedule, compiling a total of 170 matches between both disciplines.[39] She partnered with Sugiyama the entire year, winning seven titles in thirteen events.[17] This season also marked the peak of the rivalry between Clijsters and Henin, as the pair faced each other eight matches, the last six of which were in finals.[41] In doubles, five of her ten finals were against the team of Virginia Ruano Pascual and Paola Suárez.[17] With her success, Clijsters became the first Belgian world No. 1 in singles or doubles, achieving both feats in August.[18]
Singles: Two Grand Slam finals, Tour Championship defense
Clijsters began her singles season by winning the Sydney International over Lindsay Davenport, her third consecutive title.[42] She extended her tour win streak to 17 matches—all without dropping a set[17]—before she was defeated by Serena Williams in an Australian Open semifinal where she had a 5–1 lead in the third set as well as two match points on serve. She said afterwards, "The only thing I regret a little bit, is those two double faults [to start the game at 5–4]. I could feel that she was really trying to step it up, and that she was hitting the balls a lot more aggressive and had almost no unforced errors at the end."[43][44] Williams won the title to complete her "Serena Slam".[45] After losing in the final at her next two tournaments, Clijsters recovered at the Indian Wells Open to win her first Tier I title. Like in Sydney, she defeated Davenport in the final.[46] She won another Tier I title on clay in May at the Italian Open over No. 4 Amélie Mauresmo, who had a chance to serve for the match in the second set.[47]
At the French Open, both Clijsters and Henin reached the final to guarantee that the winner would become the first Belgian Grand Slam singles champion.[39] Henin had won their only meeting in a final in 2003 thus far at the German Open, which was also their only other encounter on clay.[41] While both players had match points in Germany,[48] Henin won in Paris in a lopsided affair where she only lost four games.[49] After losing in the semifinals at Wimbledon to Venus Williams,[50] Clijsters rebounded to win two Tier II titles at the Stanford Classic[51] and the Los Angeles Open. With the second of those titles, she attained the world No. 1 ranking, in part because the top-ranked Serena Williams had not played on tour since Wimbledon due to a knee injury.[39] She was the first woman to become No. 1 without winning a Grand Slam singles title.[40][52] Clijsters regained the top ranking in doubles the following week to become only the fifth player in WTA history to be No. 1 in singles and doubles simultaneously.[40][53] Despite playing the US Open as the top seed, Clijsters again lost to Henin in the final in straight sets. Clijsters had been regarded as the favourite entering the match because of her performance in the earlier rounds and Henin's lengthy semifinal match the previous day.[39][54] The title helped Henin rise to No. 2 in the world.[55]
The last stage of the season featured Clijsters battling Henin for the top ranking. Clijsters defeated Henin in the final of the Tennis Grand Prix in Filderstadt to defend her title and her world No. 1 ranking. This was the eighth time in WTA history where the top two players in the world faced off for the top ranking.[56] Although Clijsters lost the top ranking to Henin the following week,[57] she regained it a week later by winning the Luxembourg Open for the third year in a row.[18][58] She finished her season by defending her title at the WTA Tour Championships in the first year where the tournament switched to a round robin format in the initial stage. Clijsters swept her group of Mauresmo, Elena Dementieva, and Chanda Rubin.[59] She won her semifinal against Capriati before defeating Mauresmo again for the title. With the million dollar prize, Clijsters finished the season as the tour prize money leader and became the first player to earn four million dollars in a season on the WTA Tour.[60] Nonetheless, Henin took the year-end No. 1 ranking by improving on her performance at the event from the previous season.[61]
Doubles: French Open and Wimbledon titles
In the early part of the season, Clijsters and Sugiyama won three titles on hard courts.[17] However, they did not win any big titles through May, losing in the Australian Open quarterfinals to the Williams sisters and finishing runners-up at their first two Tier I finals.[17][62] They entered the French Open and Wimbledon and made it to the finals at both events. Clijsters and Sugiyama defeated the top seeds Ruano Pascual and Suarez in both finals for Clijsters's first two Grand Slam tournament titles. The French Open final was a tighter match, ending 9–7 in the third set.[39][63] Despite these titles, the duo remained behind Ruano Pascual and Suarez in the rankings until August when Clijsters became world No. 1. She held the top ranking for four non-consecutive weeks.[18][64] The pair were the top seeds at the US Open, but withdrew in the second round due to rain delaying Sugiyama's fourth round singles match for three days.[65] They ended the season by finishing runners-up to Ruano Pascual and Suarez at the WTA Tour Championships.[66] Despite Clijsters's success in 2003, she seldom played doubles during the rest of her career.[67]
2004–05: Extended injury absence, first Grand Slam singles title
Although Clijsters maintained her form into 2004, her season was ultimately marred by injuries. It was feared that she would need surgery and miss the Australian Open after she injured her left ankle in the Hopman Cup.[68] Nonetheless, she competed at the event and reached the championship match without dropping a set, despite aggravating her ankle injury in the quarterfinals.[69] Her opponent in the final was Henin and unlike their previous two Grand Slam finals, Clijsters was able to win a set. With Henin up a break at 4–3 in the third set, the chair umpire incorrectly overruled a line call on break point that would have leveled the match. Henin ended up winning the game and the match. Clijsters said afterwards, "I'm just as disappointed as after the last two grand slam [finals], but I played a lot better this time".[70] In February, she won her next two tournaments, including the Diamond Games in Antwerp for her first WTA title in her home country.[71] After Clijsters withdrew from the Indian Wells Open following one match with a torn left wrist tendon, she only played in two more WTA events the remainder of the season. She returned to the WTA Tour six weeks later with a wrist brace, but again withdrew after one match. In June, she found out she would need surgery to remove a cyst in her wrist.[72][73] As a result, she remained out until the Hasselt Cup in Belgium where she needed to retire in her third match.[72][74]
There were few expectations on Clijsters entering 2005, as it still was not certain whether she would be able to play.[75] After missing the Australian Open, she returned to the tour in February. In her second and third tournaments back, Clijsters won both Tier I events in March, the Indian Wells Open and the Miami Open, to become the second woman to complete the Sunshine Double after Steffi Graf in 1994 and 1996.[76][77] She defeated world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport in the final of Indian Wells, as well as No. 2 Amélie Mauresmo and No. 3 Maria Sharapova in her last two matches in Miami.[78] These titles lifted her ranking from outside the top 100 back into the top 20.[18][75] Clijsters was unable to continue her success into the clay or grass court seasons, winning just one title and losing in the fourth round in three sets to Davenport at both the French Open and Wimbledon
After Wimbledon in late June,[81] Clijsters only lost one more match through early October.[17] During this stretch, she won five titles including her third Stanford Classic[82] and her fifth Luxembourg Open.[83] She also built up a 22-match win streak[83] and defeated Henin in the final of the Tier I Canadian Open in their only meeting of the year.[41][84] Clijsters's most important title of the season was the US Open, her first Grand Slam singles title. As the fourth seed, she was not tested until the quarterfinals, when Venus Williams was two games away from defeating her at a set and a break up. Clijsters rebounded to win the match in three sets and then defeated the top seed and world No. 2 Sharapova in the semifinals, also in three sets. Despite her previous struggles in Grand Slam singles finals, she won the championship against No. 13 Mary Pierce with ease, only conceding four games.[79] As the winner of the US Open Series, Clijsters received double the standard amount of prize money. Her $2.2 million prize was the largest in women's sports history at the time.[85] Clijsters's last tournament of the year was the WTA Tour Championships. Although she had a chance to return to No. 1 if she outperformed the top-ranked Davenport, she only won one match and did not advance out of her round robin group.[86] She finished the year ranked No. 2, having won a tour-best nine titles and all of her finals.[17][18][86] She was named both the WTA Player of the Year and the WTA Comeback Player of the Year.[87] Despite this success, Clijsters announced in August that she was planning to retire in 2007 because of her injury troubles
Clijsters competed professionally from 1997 to 2012 in an era where her primary rivals were compatriot Justine Henin and 23-time Grand Slam singles champion Serena Williams. Coming from a country with limited success in men's or women's tennis, Clijsters became the first Belgian player to attain the No. 1 ranking. Together with Henin, she established Belgium as a leading force in women's tennis as the two of them led their country to their first Fed Cup crown in 2001 and were the top two players in the world in late 2003. Individually, Clijsters won 41 singles titles and 11 doubles titles on the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Tour. She was a three-time winner of the WTA Tour Championships. Between singles and doubles, she was a champion at all four Grand Slam tournaments, winning the US Open and the Australian Open in singles and Wimbledon and the French Open in doubles with Ai Sugiyama. Her success at majors was highlighted by winning three consecutive appearances at the US Open.
Plagued by injuries and having lost some of her desire to compete, Clijsters initially retired from tennis in 2007 at the age of 23 to get married and have a daughter. She returned to the sport two years later and won her second US Open title as an unranked player in just her third tournament back. She defended her title the following year and then won the Australian Open in 2011 en route to becoming the first mother to be ranked No. 1 by the WTA. Along with Margaret Court, she also holds the record for most Grand Slam singles titles won as a mother, with three such titles, and was the first to win one since Evonne Goolagong Cawley in 1980. She retired from professional tennis a second time after the 2012 US Open, and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2017. In September 2019, Clijsters announced her plans to come back to the tour once again, at the start of the 2020 season.
Clijsters was born to athletic parents with backgrounds in professional football and gymnastics. She was renowned for her athleticism, which was highlighted by her ability to perform splits on court in the middle of points. She built the offensive side of her game around controlled aggression while also using her exceptional movement to become an elite defensive player. Clijsters was very popular and well-liked as a player, having won the Karen Krantzcke Sportsmanship Award eight times.
Early life and background
Clijsters was born on 8 June 1983 in Bilzen, a small town in northeastern Belgium. She grew up with her younger sister Elke in the nearby town of Bree in the Flemish province of Limburg.[2] Kim is the daughter of Lei Clijsters and Els Vandecaetsbeek, both of whom were accomplished athletes. Her mother Els was a Belgian national artistic gymnastics champion. Her father Lei was a professional football defender who played for a variety of clubs in the top-flight Belgian First Division, including KV Mechelen with whom he won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1988. He was also a member of the Belgium national football team, tallying 40 caps and competing in two World Cups.[3][4] Clijsters credits her parents for giving her a footballer's legs and a gymnast's flexibility.[1] She also attributes her success to the freedom they gave her when she was a young player, saying, "Without the support I've had from my family, I wouldn't be where I am. They've let me make my own decisions."[5]
When Clijsters was five years old, her father built a clay tennis court at their home as a gift to his daughter to celebrate him winning the 1988 Gouden Schoen, an award given to the player of the year in the Belgian First Division. He had previously announced the idea of the gift as a celebration of the award during a television interview.[3][6][7] Clijsters began playing tennis earlier that year after attending a lesson with her cousins and her uncle while her parents were away.[2] From then on, she became fixated on the sport. She began playing with her sister at the Tennisdel club in Genk by the time she was seven. Her first coach Bart Van Kerckhoven recalled that she was extremely energetic and never wanted to leave the tennis court, adding that, "If the group before her did some sprints to finish off the session, Kim would join in. Then she put her heart and soul into her own training session, after which she joined the next group for their warm-up exercises."[6]
At the age of nine, Clijsters began working with Benny Vanhoudt in the more distant town of Diest. Along with her sister, she trained for fifteen hours a week, including five hours of individual instruction, which Vanhoudt said was "an insane amount [of total hours]."[8] She continued to train in Diest until she was twelve. During this time, she also first worked with Carl Maes and Wim Fissette, both of whom would coach Clijsters later in her professional career. When she was thirteen, Maes took over as her primary coach at the Flemish Tennis Association in Antwerp.[9]
Junior career
Clijsters had success at both the national and international levels at a very young age. In 1993, she won the 12-and-under division of the Belgian Junior Championships (the Coupe de Borman) in doubles with her future longtime rival Justine Henin. At the time, Clijsters was ten years old and Henin was eleven.[6] A year later, she won the 12-and-under singles event at the same tournament.[10] Clijsters continued to play alongside Henin, winning the doubles event at the 14-and-under European Junior Championships as well as the 14-and-under European Junior Team Championships for Belgium, both in 1996 and the latter of which also with Leslie Butkiewicz.[6][11] Her first big international junior title came at Les Petits As, a high-level 14-and-under tournament. She defeated future top 25 players Iveta Benešová and Elena Bovina in the semifinals and final respectively.[6]
Clijsters played two full seasons on the ITF Junior Circuit, the premier junior tour that is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF). At the very end of 1997, she partnered with Zsófia Gubacsi to win her first ITF title in the doubles event at the Grade A Orange Bowl, one of the highest level junior tournaments.[12] In 1998, Clijsters had her best year on the junior tour, finishing the season at career-high rankings of world No. 11 in singles and world No. 4 in doubles.[13][14] She won two junior Grand Slam doubles titles, the French Open with Jelena Dokic and the US Open with Eva Dyrberg.[15][16] She defeated her French Open partner Dokic in the US Open doubles final.[16] In singles, she made it to the Wimbledon final, but finished runner-up to Katarina Srebotnik.[9]
Professional career
1997–99: Maiden WTA title, Newcomer of the Year
As a fourteen year old, Clijsters could only enter professional tournaments through qualifying since the WTA Tour's policy did not allow players her age to receive main draw wild cards. In August 1997, Clijsters qualified for her first main draw at her second career tournament on the lower-level ITF Women's Circuit, which was held in the Belgian coastal town of Koksijde. She won seven matches in total, including five in qualifying, to reach the quarterfinals. Clijsters did not enter another professional tournament until after her runner-up finish at the Wimbledon girls' singles event the following summer. Playing in Brussels in July 1998, she won both the singles and doubles events for her first career professional titles. Clijsters continued to excel at the ITF level, winning four more titles within the next year, two in both singles and doubles.[9][17]
Clijsters began 1999 with a WTA singles ranking of No. 420 in the world.[18] Around this time, Belgian women's tennis was beginning to flourish. Both Dominique Van Roost and Sabine Appelmans had been ranked in the top 20 within the previous two years, complementing the rise of Clijsters and Henin on the junior tour. This success helped lead to the revival of the only WTA tournament in Belgium, which was relaunched as the Flanders Women's Open in Antwerp after not being held in six years. Clijsters made her WTA debut at the tournament in May, entering the main draw as a lucky loser after losing in the final round of qualifying. She won her first career tour-level match against Miho Saeki and advanced to the quarterfinals, where she was defeated by top seed Sarah Pitkowski despite holding match points.[19]
One week after Clijsters turned sixteen, she entered Wimbledon as the youngest player in the top 200. After barely having a high enough ranking to get into the qualifying draw, she ultimately made it to the round of sixteen in her Grand Slam tournament debut. She defeated world No. 10 Amanda Coetzer in the third round and did not drop a set until losing to Steffi Graf one round later, her only career match against her childhood idol.[2][20][21] Clijsters also had a good showing at the US Open, losing to the eventual champion Serena Williams in the third round after squandering a chance to serve for the match.[21] Clijsters next played at the Luxembourg Open held in the town of Kockelscheuer just outside the capital. She won the title with relative ease in just her fourth career WTA event, taking affinity for the friendly atmosphere of the smaller tournament and the faster carpet courts. Most notably, she faced off against Van Roost in the final and only conceded four games to the top-ranked Belgian.[22] Clijsters also made the singles final in Bratislava at her next tournament, finishing runner-up to No. 11 Amélie Mauresmo. Nonetheless, she was able to win the doubles event with compatriot Laurence Courtois as her partner.[23] At the end of the season, Clijsters was named WTA Newcomer of the Year, having risen to No. 47 in the world.[24]
2000–02: French Open finalist, Tour champion
Clijsters was unable to repeat her success at the Grand Slam tournaments in 2000, not advancing past the second round at any of the singles events.[17] However, she continued her steady climb in the rankings up to No. 18 on the strength of two more titles,[18] one at the Tasmanian International in her first tournament of the year[25] and another at the Sparkassen Cup in Germany near the end of the season.[26] The latter victory was Clijsters's first at a Tier II event (the second highest level tournament) and followed up a loss in another Tier II final to world No. 1 Martina Hingis earlier that month.[27] In the middle of the year, Clijsters also finished runner-up at the Wimbledon mixed doubles event alongside her boyfriend Lleyton Hewitt
At the Indian Wells Open in early 2001, Clijsters finally defeated Hingis in her fourth meeting against the world No. 1 player to reach her first Tier I final.[28] After winning the first set of the final, she ended up losing in three sets to Serena Williams. The match was overshadowed by the controversy of the crowd booing Williams for her sister Venus's late withdrawal from their semifinal, leading to both sisters boycotting the tournament for 14 years.[29][30] A few months later at the French Open, Clijsters became the first Belgian to contest a Grand Slam singles final. She had defeated No. 16 Henin in the semifinals in their closest and highest profile match to date, coming back from a set and a break down, and also having saved three break points that would have put her behind 5–2 in the second set.[31] The final against Australian Open champion and world No. 4 Jennifer Capriati was an even tighter match. Playing a day after her 18th birthday, Clijsters won the first set but lost the second. After a French Open final record 22 games and 2 hours 21 minutes in total, she was defeated by Capriati 12–10 in the deciding set.[32][33] The match was ranked as the greatest French Open women's final in Open Era history by Tennis.com.[33] Clijsters would go on to make it to at least the quarterfinals at each of the next three majors.[17] She also played in her first Grand Slam doubles final at Wimbledon later that year, with Ai Sugiyama as her partner.[34] She won three singles titles in 2001, including her second titles at both the Luxembourg Open and the Sparkassen Cup, to help her finish the season at No. 5 in the world. With four doubles finals in total, she was also ranked No. 15 in doubles at the end of the year.[17][18]
Clijsters maintained her top ten ranking throughout 2002[18] despite struggling with an ongoing shoulder injury in the first half of the year.[35] Her best result at a Grand Slam event came at the Australian Open, where she lost another three-set match to Capriati in the semifinals in their first meeting since the French Open final.[36] Nonetheless, she continued to rise in the rankings to No. 3 by March, her best ranking for the season.[18] Although Clijsters did not reach another Grand Slam quarterfinal the rest of the year, she won three more titles leading up to the year-end WTA Tour Championships in Los Angeles.[17] She received her third invite to the event, which only the top 16 players in the world are guaranteed entry. Clijsters made it to the final with ease after dropping only six games in the first three rounds, including a victory over Henin in the quarterfinals[37] and a retirement due to injury from Venus Williams in the semifinals. Her opponent in the final was Serena Williams, who entered the match with a 56–4 record on the season and having won the last three majors of the year. Although Serena had won their first five encounters and was considered a clear favourite, Clijsters upset Serena in straight sets to win the championship.[38] After the tournament, she said, "This is the best victory of my career."[35]
2003: World No. 1 in singles and doubles
The 2003 season was Clijsters's "annus mirabilis".[39] She competed in 21 singles events, reaching the semifinals in all but one of them, advancing to 15 finals, and winning nine titles. With a record of 90–12, she was the first player to accrue 90 wins since Martina Navratilova in 1982 and the first to play more than 100 matches since Chris Evert in 1974.[40] Clijsters also played an extensive doubles schedule, compiling a total of 170 matches between both disciplines.[39] She partnered with Sugiyama the entire year, winning seven titles in thirteen events.[17] This season also marked the peak of the rivalry between Clijsters and Henin, as the pair faced each other eight matches, the last six of which were in finals.[41] In doubles, five of her ten finals were against the team of Virginia Ruano Pascual and Paola Suárez.[17] With her success, Clijsters became the first Belgian world No. 1 in singles or doubles, achieving both feats in August.[18]
Singles: Two Grand Slam finals, Tour Championship defense
Clijsters began her singles season by winning the Sydney International over Lindsay Davenport, her third consecutive title.[42] She extended her tour win streak to 17 matches—all without dropping a set[17]—before she was defeated by Serena Williams in an Australian Open semifinal where she had a 5–1 lead in the third set as well as two match points on serve. She said afterwards, "The only thing I regret a little bit, is those two double faults [to start the game at 5–4]. I could feel that she was really trying to step it up, and that she was hitting the balls a lot more aggressive and had almost no unforced errors at the end."[43][44] Williams won the title to complete her "Serena Slam".[45] After losing in the final at her next two tournaments, Clijsters recovered at the Indian Wells Open to win her first Tier I title. Like in Sydney, she defeated Davenport in the final.[46] She won another Tier I title on clay in May at the Italian Open over No. 4 Amélie Mauresmo, who had a chance to serve for the match in the second set.[47]
At the French Open, both Clijsters and Henin reached the final to guarantee that the winner would become the first Belgian Grand Slam singles champion.[39] Henin had won their only meeting in a final in 2003 thus far at the German Open, which was also their only other encounter on clay.[41] While both players had match points in Germany,[48] Henin won in Paris in a lopsided affair where she only lost four games.[49] After losing in the semifinals at Wimbledon to Venus Williams,[50] Clijsters rebounded to win two Tier II titles at the Stanford Classic[51] and the Los Angeles Open. With the second of those titles, she attained the world No. 1 ranking, in part because the top-ranked Serena Williams had not played on tour since Wimbledon due to a knee injury.[39] She was the first woman to become No. 1 without winning a Grand Slam singles title.[40][52] Clijsters regained the top ranking in doubles the following week to become only the fifth player in WTA history to be No. 1 in singles and doubles simultaneously.[40][53] Despite playing the US Open as the top seed, Clijsters again lost to Henin in the final in straight sets. Clijsters had been regarded as the favourite entering the match because of her performance in the earlier rounds and Henin's lengthy semifinal match the previous day.[39][54] The title helped Henin rise to No. 2 in the world.[55]
The last stage of the season featured Clijsters battling Henin for the top ranking. Clijsters defeated Henin in the final of the Tennis Grand Prix in Filderstadt to defend her title and her world No. 1 ranking. This was the eighth time in WTA history where the top two players in the world faced off for the top ranking.[56] Although Clijsters lost the top ranking to Henin the following week,[57] she regained it a week later by winning the Luxembourg Open for the third year in a row.[18][58] She finished her season by defending her title at the WTA Tour Championships in the first year where the tournament switched to a round robin format in the initial stage. Clijsters swept her group of Mauresmo, Elena Dementieva, and Chanda Rubin.[59] She won her semifinal against Capriati before defeating Mauresmo again for the title. With the million dollar prize, Clijsters finished the season as the tour prize money leader and became the first player to earn four million dollars in a season on the WTA Tour.[60] Nonetheless, Henin took the year-end No. 1 ranking by improving on her performance at the event from the previous season.[61]
Doubles: French Open and Wimbledon titles
In the early part of the season, Clijsters and Sugiyama won three titles on hard courts.[17] However, they did not win any big titles through May, losing in the Australian Open quarterfinals to the Williams sisters and finishing runners-up at their first two Tier I finals.[17][62] They entered the French Open and Wimbledon and made it to the finals at both events. Clijsters and Sugiyama defeated the top seeds Ruano Pascual and Suarez in both finals for Clijsters's first two Grand Slam tournament titles. The French Open final was a tighter match, ending 9–7 in the third set.[39][63] Despite these titles, the duo remained behind Ruano Pascual and Suarez in the rankings until August when Clijsters became world No. 1. She held the top ranking for four non-consecutive weeks.[18][64] The pair were the top seeds at the US Open, but withdrew in the second round due to rain delaying Sugiyama's fourth round singles match for three days.[65] They ended the season by finishing runners-up to Ruano Pascual and Suarez at the WTA Tour Championships.[66] Despite Clijsters's success in 2003, she seldom played doubles during the rest of her career.[67]
2004–05: Extended injury absence, first Grand Slam singles title
Although Clijsters maintained her form into 2004, her season was ultimately marred by injuries. It was feared that she would need surgery and miss the Australian Open after she injured her left ankle in the Hopman Cup.[68] Nonetheless, she competed at the event and reached the championship match without dropping a set, despite aggravating her ankle injury in the quarterfinals.[69] Her opponent in the final was Henin and unlike their previous two Grand Slam finals, Clijsters was able to win a set. With Henin up a break at 4–3 in the third set, the chair umpire incorrectly overruled a line call on break point that would have leveled the match. Henin ended up winning the game and the match. Clijsters said afterwards, "I'm just as disappointed as after the last two grand slam [finals], but I played a lot better this time".[70] In February, she won her next two tournaments, including the Diamond Games in Antwerp for her first WTA title in her home country.[71] After Clijsters withdrew from the Indian Wells Open following one match with a torn left wrist tendon, she only played in two more WTA events the remainder of the season. She returned to the WTA Tour six weeks later with a wrist brace, but again withdrew after one match. In June, she found out she would need surgery to remove a cyst in her wrist.[72][73] As a result, she remained out until the Hasselt Cup in Belgium where she needed to retire in her third match.[72][74]
There were few expectations on Clijsters entering 2005, as it still was not certain whether she would be able to play.[75] After missing the Australian Open, she returned to the tour in February. In her second and third tournaments back, Clijsters won both Tier I events in March, the Indian Wells Open and the Miami Open, to become the second woman to complete the Sunshine Double after Steffi Graf in 1994 and 1996.[76][77] She defeated world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport in the final of Indian Wells, as well as No. 2 Amélie Mauresmo and No. 3 Maria Sharapova in her last two matches in Miami.[78] These titles lifted her ranking from outside the top 100 back into the top 20.[18][75] Clijsters was unable to continue her success into the clay or grass court seasons, winning just one title and losing in the fourth round in three sets to Davenport at both the French Open and Wimbledon
After Wimbledon in late June,[81] Clijsters only lost one more match through early October.[17] During this stretch, she won five titles including her third Stanford Classic[82] and her fifth Luxembourg Open.[83] She also built up a 22-match win streak[83] and defeated Henin in the final of the Tier I Canadian Open in their only meeting of the year.[41][84] Clijsters's most important title of the season was the US Open, her first Grand Slam singles title. As the fourth seed, she was not tested until the quarterfinals, when Venus Williams was two games away from defeating her at a set and a break up. Clijsters rebounded to win the match in three sets and then defeated the top seed and world No. 2 Sharapova in the semifinals, also in three sets. Despite her previous struggles in Grand Slam singles finals, she won the championship against No. 13 Mary Pierce with ease, only conceding four games.[79] As the winner of the US Open Series, Clijsters received double the standard amount of prize money. Her $2.2 million prize was the largest in women's sports history at the time.[85] Clijsters's last tournament of the year was the WTA Tour Championships. Although she had a chance to return to No. 1 if she outperformed the top-ranked Davenport, she only won one match and did not advance out of her round robin group.[86] She finished the year ranked No. 2, having won a tour-best nine titles and all of her finals.[17][18][86] She was named both the WTA Player of the Year and the WTA Comeback Player of the Year.[87] Despite this success, Clijsters announced in August that she was planning to retire in 2007 because of her injury troubles
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