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Kim Clijsters Biography

Kim Clijsters (born June 8, 1983 in Bilzen, Belgium) currently is the fourth ranked female tennis player in the world, a former World No. 1 player, the 2005 U.S. Open champion, and the winner of the 2002 and 2003 WTA Tour Championships.

Playing style

Clijsters, known as Kim Kong, Killing Kim or Kim Possible to many fans, is recognized for her deep, powerful, well-placed groundstrokes, as well as her court-wide defense, characterized by speed and athleticism. After being defeated by Clijsters in the U.S. Open, Maria Sharapova commented that Clijsters' strength lies in how she always forces her opponent to "hit that extra shot."

Family life

Clijsters is the daughter of a successful footballer, Lei Clijsters, and a national gymnastics champion, Els Vandecaetsbeek. Clijsters claims to have inherited a 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. As of October 2006, she is engaged to 27-year-old American basketball player Brian Lynch, who is based in Clijsters' hometown of Bree. In an interview with "Sportweekend," Clijsters said that she and Lynch will marry soon after Wimbledon in 2007 and that she will retire to become a housewife, look after her husband, and support him in his career.

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 Dokic, and the U.S. 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 U.S. 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. Her next important breakthrough came at the end of 2002, when she won the year-end WTA Tour Championships in Los Angeles, defeating top ranked Serena Williams in the final, 7-5 6-3. On her way to the final, she beat fourth ranked Justine Henin and second ranked Venus Williams (when Williams retired).

Clijsters had her career-best season in 2003. She won nine singles tournaments and seven doubles titles that year, including the French Open and Wimbledon. She successfully defended her WTA Tour Championships title and reached two Grand Slam finals (French Open and U.S. Open), losing both to Henin.

On August 11, 2003, Clijsters attained the top ranking, holding the spot for 12 non-consecutive weeks before losing it later in the year to Henin. She is the first woman to achieve become the top ranked player on the computer rankings without winning a Grand Slam title.

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 Indian Wells, 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 season, winning several matches, before reaggravating the injury.

2005

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, losing to Venus Williams in a quarterfinal. She then completed her comeback to the top echelon of women's tennis when she won, as an unseeded entry, 14 straight matches to claim two Tier I titles (Indian Wells and Miami) in March. During that run, Clijsters defeated five of the world's top six players.

Clijsters finally won a Grand Slam singles title at the U.S. Open. It was her first victory after reaching four Grand Slam finals previously. In the tournament, Clijsters defeated Mary Pierce 6-3, 6-1 in the final. Along the way, she defeated 10th seeded Venus Williams and top seeded Maria Sharapova. By winning the U.S. Open Seriesâ€”a string of tournaments leading to the Grand Slamâ€”Clijsters received a 100 percent bonus to the U.S. $1.1 million in prize money at the U.S. Open. Her U.S. $2.2 million paycheck was the largest payday in women's sports history.

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

At the 2005 WTA Tour Championships, Clijsters was eliminated after only two matches. She lost her first match to Mary Pierce, 6-1, 4-6, 7-6. AmÃ©lie Mauresmo defeated her in the second match, 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 Elena Dementieva, 6-2 6-3, 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 number two.

2006

Clijsters started her 2006 season 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 2006 Australian Open, Clijsters defeated former champion Martina Hingis, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 in a quarterfinal, before retiring from a semifinal match with Amelie Mauresmo. Despite the loss, the ranking points she accumulated were enough to regain the world number one spot, a position she last held on November 9, 2003. She was the first tennis player, male or female, to rise from outside the Top 100 (No. 134) to No. 1 in less than 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 thournament 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 7-5, 6-2.

In May, Clijsters competed at the French Open. She did not lose a set on her way to the semifinals. In a quarterfinal, she once again defeated Hingis, 7-6, 6-1. However, she lost to Justine Henin in a semifinal 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 6-4, 6-2. Clijsters then reached the final in San Diego, falling to second-seeded Maria Sharapova 7-5, 7-5. This was her first loss to Sharapova in five career meetings.

On August 16, after receiving a first round bye at the 2006 Rogers Cup in MontrÃ©al, Clijsters faced Canadian StÃ©phanie 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 August 18, 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 compete in the 2006 U.S. Open to defend her title. She also missed the Fed Cup final against Italy, which Italy won 3-2.[3]

At the Gaz de France Stars, her first tournament in more than two months, Clijsters successfully defended her title by beating qualifier Kaia Kanepi 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 in the final. En route to the final, Clijsters defeated Anne Kremer (6-3, 6-2), Martina MÃ¼ller (6-3, 6-2), Sandra Kloesel (6-1, 6-0) and Vera Zvonareva (6-4, 3-6, 6-4).

At the year-ending WTA Tour Championships, Clijsters lost a semifinal to AmÃ©lie 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 season on the tour 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 tournament in Sydney, Australia, defeating Serb Jelena Jankovic in the final 4-6, 7-6(1), 6-4 after being down a match point.

At the 2007 Australian Open, the fourth seeded Clijsters defeated sixth seeded Martina Hingis in a quarterfinal match. However, she lost to Maria Sharapova in the semifinal, 6-4, 6-2.

Kim Clijsters