Queen of Queens ready to rule

Written by: Staff on 13th September 2010

TENNIS: US Open-Kim Clijsters vs Vera Zvonareva (Womens' Final)

Queen of Queens ready to rule

Sept. 11, 2010; Flushing, NY, USA; Kim Clijsters (BEL) on day 13 of the 2010 US Open at Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Mandatory Credit: Susan Mullane-US PRESSWIRE |

Some people are never satisfied. Kim Clijsters has now won the last three US Opens she has played and clearly has the business of winning matches at Flushing Meadows down pat. Her next mission is to work out how to win grand slam titles away from her beloved Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Clijsters’ one-sided victory over Vera Zvonareva in a Saturday’s lacklustre final was the 21st consecutive match the Belgian has won at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre. Such is the affection showered upon her there that New Yorkers could not even bring themselves to cheer against her when she was playing American superstar Venus Williams in their compelling semi. If anything, Clijsters appears even more approachable and engaging in this second park of her career than she did the first time around and she is now armed with impossibly cute daughter Jada to win over any stragglers. Poor Williams did not stand a chance against that charm offensive.

Clijsters is popular everywhere she goes but there is something about the wave of emotion she rides on in New York, never more so than during last year’s fairytale run to the final, that seems to give her an extra game or two that she would probably not win elsewhere. The challenge for Clijsters now is to find similar inspiration at the Australian Open, Roland Garros and Wimbledon. There are arguments to suggest she is more than capable of winning all three and though much depends on how well her body holds up through the season, a career grand slam is not impossible.

Clijsters has connection with Australia which goes back to the days when she was Lleyton Hewitt’s better half. The country took to Clijsters like a besotted mother-in-law-to-be, lukewarm in its affection for its own son but utterly approving of his choice of partner. Long after they split up and married other people, Clijsters was still being called ‘Aussie Kim’ and, perhaps more significantly, has often played well at Melbourne Park and is a former finalist there.

Clijsters came even closer to winning the French Open title. In the 2001 final, at the age of 17, she was within a couple of points of beating Jennifer Capriati and she was runner-up again in 2003 to Henin. She is an able clay-court player and should find extra motivation in 2011 after being forced to miss this year’s tournament with a foot injury. The added advantage she has in Paris is that Serena Williams is not the player on clay that she is on hard-courts and the draw therefore tends to be a good deal more open.

On paper, Wimbledon appears to be the hardest of the three remaining grand slams for Clijsters to win, for it is the only place where she has not yet got past the semi-finals (she made the last four in 2003 and 2006). It is possible that her famed movement is not quite as sure-footed on grass as it is elsewhere and, as a result, she is simply not as confident. That said, she has won WTA events on the green stuff and though she was disappointing at this year’s Championships, she still beat Henin in one of the stand-out matches of the tournament. She went onto lose to Zvonareva in the quarters, a defeat which does not look nearly so shocking now that the latter has made back-to-back grand slam finals.

After gaining brisk and brutal 6-2, 6-1 revenge on a tired Zvonareva on Saturday night, Clijsters gave her own assessment of her chances at the three other majors and appeared to agree with us at www.10sBalls.com that all are not just within reach but have each got the potential to host the kind of emotional victories in which she specialises.

“They all motivate you in a different way. Tactics-wise you always have to adjust a little bit to each and every single one of them,” said Clijsters. “But I think the one where I’ve felt I can do better than I have is obviously at the Australian Open. It’s a similar surface. I’ve always enjoyed playing there. That’s obviously a Grand Slam I want to do well. I want to do well in all of them, of course. Wimbledon is the one where I’m close to because I have the connection with my dad there because he enjoyed it there. I always want to do well there, as well. The French Open feels like playing in Belgium because we have so many Belgian people supporting us. We have the history of a lot of past Belgians who have won there. They all have a different impact on the way you feel and a positive impact and I think that’s something I want to use when I go back there next year.”

The return of Williams from the foot injury which kept her away from Flushing Meadows may have a bearing on how much Clijsters dominates next year but the American’s No.1 ranking is certainly under threat. It sounds like Belgium’s Queen of Queens wants to rule the rest of the world as well.

Topics: American Superstar, Arthur Ashe, Arthur Ashe Stadium, Australian Open, Besotted Mother, Billie Jean King, Charm Offensive, Cute Daughter, Grand Slam Titles, Kim Clijsters, Lacklustre, Lleyton Hewitt, Melbourne Park, National Tennis Centre, Queen Of Queens, Roland Garros, Stragglers, Vera Zvonareva, Wave Of Emotion, Wimbledon