kim clijsters

Kim Clijsters, (born on June 8, 1983) is a Belgian tennis player. On 10 august, 2003 she achieved the number one spot on the WTA singles rankings, but subsequently lost it to fellow Belgian Justine Henin-Hardenne.

Tennis career

Clijsters was an accomplished junior player. In 1998 she was the runner-up in the Wimbledon junior singles, won the French Open junior doubles with Jelena Dokic and the US Open junior doubles with Eva Dyrberg, and finished the year ranked number 11 in singles and number 4 in doubles in the ITF junior world rankings. In 1999 she made the breakthrough into the senior ranks of women's tennis. At Wimbledon, she played through the qualifying rounds to make the main draw and beat Amanda Coetzer en route to the fourth round, where she lost to her childhood idol Steffi Graf. Later that summer, Clijsters reached the third round of the US Open, where at one stage she served for the match against, but ultimately lost to, the eventual champion Serena Williams. In the autumn of 1999, Clijsters won her first WTA singles title at Luxembourg, and then her first WTA doubles title at Bratislava with Laurence Courtois. She climbed her way up the rankings over the next couple of years, reaching her first Grand Slam final at Roland Garros 2001, where she lost an extremely close match to Jennifer Capriati, by a score of 12-10 in the final set. Her next important breakthrough came at the end of 2002, when she won the year-end WTA championships in Los Angeles, scoring a huge win in the final over the world number one at the time, Serena Williams. Clijsters had the most successful year of her career so far in 2003, when she won nine tournaments, including the WTA championships, reached two Grand Slam finals at Roland Garros and the US Open, losing on both occasions to her compatriot Justine Henin-Hardenne, and was ranked number one in the world for several weeks, although she eventually finished the season at number two behind Henin-Hardenne. Clijsters started 2004 by reaching her fourth Grand Slam final at the Australian Open, where she lost again to Henin-Hardenne; and then went on a very successful run where she won two titles at the Paris Indoors and Antwerp tournaments. Unfortunately, Clijsters then began to have injury problems with her wrist, which eventually required surgery and forced her to withdraw from the rest of the 2004 Grand Slam tournaments. She has won 23 singles titles in her career so far. Two of those came at the prestigious year-ending WTA Tour Championships in Los Angeles, California in 2002 and 2003, affirming the fact that even though she hasn't won any Grand Slams, she is quite capable of winning a tournament that features only the top eight women players in the world. In 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, the Proximus Diamond Games in Antwerp, in February 2005. She completed a stunning comeback by winning 14 straight matches against world's top players to claim two Tier I-event (Indian Wells and Miami) titles in March.

Records

2005

By winning in Indian Wells in 2005, she became the lowest ranked (No. 133) player ever to win a Tier-I event. In the final she beat American Lindsay Davenport in three sets: 6-4, 4-6, 6-2. This was Clijsters' second tournament after almost a year of inactivity. En route to victory she also defeated world no. 4 Elena Dementieva in the semifinals.

In Miami she became only the second player since Steffi Graf (1994-1996) in history to win the Indian Wells-Miami double. En route to victory she beat world no. 5 Dementieva in the quaterfinals, no. 2 Mauresmo in the semifinals, and world no. 3 Sharapova in the final.

Family life

She announced her engagement to long-time partner Australian player Lleyton Hewitt in November 2003, but they split up in October 2004. She also has a younger sister named Elke, who like her sister was an accomplished junior player, and who finished 2002 as the ITF World Junior Doubles champion, but back injuries forced Elke to retire from her professional tennis career in 2004.

Grand Slam achievements

French Open final - 2001 -- lost to Jennifer Capriati
French Open final - 2003 -- lost to Justine Henin-Hardenne
US Open final - 2003 -- lost to Justine Henin-Hardenne
Australian Open final - 2004 -- lost to Justine Henin-Hardenne

Titles (34)

b>Legend (Singles)

Grand Slam (0)

WTA Championships (2)

Tier I Event (4)

WTA Tour (17)

Singles (23)

b>No.	Date	Tournament	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	1999-09-20	Luxembourg	Dominique Monami (Belgium)	6-2 6-2
2.	2000-01-10	Hobart	Chanda Rubin (USA)	2-6 6-2 6-2
3.	2000-10-30	Leipzig	Elena Likhovtseva (Russia)	7-6 4-6 6-4
4.	2001-07-23	Stanford	Lindsay Davenport (USA)	6-4 6-7 6-1
5.	2001-09-24	Leipzig	Magdalena Maleeva (Bulgaria)	6-1 6-1
6.	2001-10-22	Luxembourg	Lisa Raymond (USA)	6-2 6-2
7.	2002-04-29	Hamburg	Venus Williams (USA)	1-6 6-3 6-4
8.	2002-10-07	Filderstadt	Daniela Hantuchov (Slovakia)	4-6 6-3 6-4
9.	2002-10-21	Luxembourg	Magdalena Maleeva (Bulgaria)	6-1 6-2
bgcolor="ffffcc""\|10.	bgcolor="ffffcc""\|2002-11-04	bgcolor="ffffcc""\|WTA Tour Championships (L.A.)	bgcolor="ffffcc""\|Serena Williams (USA)	bgcolor="ffffcc""\|7-5 6-3
11.	2003-01-06	Sydney	Lindsay Davenport (USA)	6-4 6-3
bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|12.	bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|2003-03-03	bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|Indian Wells	bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|Lindsay Davenport (USA)	bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|6-4 7-5
bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|13.	bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|2003-05-12	bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|Rome	bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|Amelie Mauresmo (France)	bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|3-6 7-6 6-0
14.	2003-06-16	's-Hertogenbosch	Justine Henin-Hardenne (Belgium)	6-7 3-0 ret.
15.	2003-07-21	Stanford	Jennifer Capriati (USA)	4-6 6-4 6-2
16.	2003-08-04	Los Angeles	Lindsay Davenport (USA)	6-1 3-6 6-1
17.	2003-10-06	Filderstadt	Justine Henin-Hardenne (Belgium)	5-7 6-4 6-2
18.	2003-10-20	Luxembourg	Chanda Rubin (USA)	6-2 7-5
bgcolor="ffffcc""\|19.	bgcolor="ffffcc""\|2003-11-03	bgcolor="ffffcc""\|WTA Tour Championships (L.A.)	bgcolor="ffffcc""\|Amelie Mauresmo (France)	bgcolor="ffffcc""\|6-2 6-0
20.	2004-02-09	Paris	Mary Pierce (France)	6-2 6-1
21.	2004-02-16	Antwerp	Silvia Farina Elia (Italy)	6-3 6-0
bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|22.	bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|2005-03-07	bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|Indian Wells	bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|Lindsay Davenport (USA)	bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|6-4 4-6 6-2
bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|23.	bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|2005-03-23	bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|Miami	bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|Maria Sharapova (Russia)	bgcolor="#dfe2e9""\|6-3 7-5

Performance Timeline

Tournament !! 2005 !! 2004 !! 2003 !! 2002 !! 2001 !! 2000 !! 1999 !! Career
a href="/encyclopedia/Australian-Open" title="Australian Open">Australian Open	align="center"\|-	align="center"\|F	align="center"\|SF	align="center"\|SF	align="center"\|4r	align="center"\|1r	align="center"\|-	align="center"\|0
a href="/encyclopedia/Roland-Garros" title="Roland Garros">Roland Garros	align="center"\|	align="center"\|-	align="center"\|F	align="center"\|3r	align="center"\|F	align="center"\|1r	align="center"\|-	align="center"\|0
a href="/encyclopedia/Wimbledon-Championships" title="Wimbledon Championships">Wimbledon	align="center"\|	align="center"\|-	align="center"\|SF	align="center"\|2r	align="center"\|QF	align="center"\|2r	align="center"\|4r	align="center"\|0
a href="/encyclopedia/US-Open" title="US Open">US Open	align="center"\|	align="center"\|-	align="center"\|F	align="center"\|4r	align="center"\|QF	align="center"\|2r	align="center"\|3r	align="center"\|0
a href="/encyclopedia/WTA-Tour-Championships" title="WTA Tour Championships">WTA Tour Championships	align="center"\|	align="center"\|-	align="center"\|W	align="center"\|W	align="center"\|SF	align="center"\|QF	align="center"\|-	align="center"\|2
inals reached	align="center"\|2	align="center"\|3	align="center"\|15	align="center"\|6	align="center"\|6	align="center"\|3	align="center"\|2	align="center"\|35
b>Tournaments Won	align="center"\|2	align="center"\|2	align="center"\|9	align="center"\|4	align="center"\|3	align="center"\|2	align="center"\|1	align="center"\|23
ardcourt Win-Loss	align="center"\|16-1	align="center"\|17-2	align="center"\|62-8	align="center"\|33-11	align="center"\|28-11	align="center"\|17-9	align="center"\|6-2	align="center"\|166-35
lay Win-Loss	align="center"\|0-0	align="center"\|3-0	align="center"\|17-2	align="center"\|10-3	align="center"\|15-5	align="center"\|1-2	align="center"\|2-2	align="center"\|48-14
rass Win-Loss	align="center"\|0-0	align="center"\|0-0	align="center"\|9-1	align="center"\|2-2	align="center"\|7-2	align="center"\|2-2	align="center"\|3-1	align="center"\|23-8
arpet Win-Loss	align="center"\|0-0	align="center"\|0-0	align="center"\|2-1	align="center"\|6-1	align="center"\|8-0	align="center"\|10-4	align="center"\|8-2	align="center"\|34-8
b>Overall Win-Loss	align="center"\|16-1	align="center"\|20-2	align="center"\|90-12	align="center"\|51-17	align="center"\|58-18	align="center"\|30-17	align="center"\|19-7	align="center"\|271-74
b>Year End Ranking	align="center"\|	align="center"\|22	align="center"\|2	align="center"\|4	align="center"\|5	align="center"\|18	align="center"\|47	align="center"\|N/A

Doubles (11)

No.	Date	Tournament	Partnering	Opponents in the final	Score
1.	1999-10-27	Bratislava	Laurence Courtois (Belgium)	Olga Barabanschikova (Belarus) / Lilia Osterloh (USA)	6-2 3-6 7-5
2.	2000-05-21	Antwerp	Sabine Appelmans (Belgium)	Jennifer Hopkins (USA) / Petra Rampre (Slovenia)	6-1 6-1
3.	2002-08-12	Los Angeles	Jelena Dokic (Serbia)	Daniela Hantuchov (Slovakia) / Ai Sugiyama (Japan)	6-3 6-3
4.	2002-10-27	Luxemburg	Janette Husarova (Slovakia)	Kveta Peschke (Czech Republic) / Barbara Rittner (Germany)	4-6 6-3 7-5
5.	2003-01-12	Sydney	Ai Sugiyama (Japan)	Conchita Martinez (Spain) / Rennae Stubbs (Australia)	6-3 6-3
6.	2003-02-16	Antwerp	Ai Sugiyama (Japan)	Nathalie Dechy / Emilie Loit (France)	6-2 6-0
7.	2003-03-02	Scottdale	Ai Sugiyama (Japan)	Lindsay Davenport / Lisa Raymond (USA)	6-1 6-4
bgcolor="#e5d1cb"\|8.	bgcolor="#e5d1cb"\|2003-06-08	bgcolor="#e5d1cb"\|Roland Garros	bgcolor="#e5d1cb"\|Ai Sugiyama (Japan)	bgcolor="#e5d1cb"\|Virgina Ruano Pascual (Spain) / Paola Suarez (Argentina)	bgcolor="#e5d1cb"\|6-7 6-2 9-7
bgcolor="#e5d1cb"\|9.	bgcolor="#e5d1cb"\|'''2003-07-06	bgcolor="#e5d1cb"\|Wimbledon	bgcolor="#e5d1cb"\|Ai Sugiyama (Japan)	bgcolor="#e5d1cb"\|Virgina Ruano Pascual (Spain) / Paola Suarez (Argentina)	bgcolor="#e5d1cb"\|6-4 6-4
10.	2003-08-03	San Diego	Ai Sugiyama (Japan)	Lindsay Davenport / Lisa Raymond (USA)	6-4 7-5
11.	2003-10-19	Zurich	Ai Sugiyama (Japan)	Virgina Ruano Pascual (Spain) / Paola Suarez (Argentina)	7-6 6-2