Kim Clijsters IPA , (born on June 8, 1983, Bilzen, Belgium) is a former World No. 1 tennis player from Belgium. She achieved that ranking on 11 august, 2003 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 event. She also won the French Open junior doubles event with Jelena Dokic and the US Open junior doubles event 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, Clijsters 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, partnering with Laurence Courtois.

She climbed her way up the rankings over the next couple of years. She reached her first Grand Slam final at the 2001 French Open, 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 Tour 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. She won nine tournaments that year, including the WTA championships, reached two Grand Slam finals at the French Open 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 and Antwerp. 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.

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. She then completed a stunning comeback to the top echelon of tennis when she won, as an unseeded player, 14 straight matches against world's top players to claim two Tier I titles (Indian Wells and Miami) in March, 2005.

Clijsters has won 28 singles titles in her career so far. Two of those came at the prestigious year-ending WTA Tour Championships, affirming the fact that she is quite capable of winning a tournament featuring only the top eight women players in the world.

Clijsters finally got the Grand Slam monkey off her back when she won the 2005 US Open. Clijsters defeated Mary Pierce 6-3, 6-1 in the finals, winning 2.2 million USD — the largest payday in women's sports history. Her actual winnings from the US open were 1.1 million USD, but because of her #1 ranking in the USTA in 2005, she received a 100% bonus from the association. Along the way, Clijsters defeated both Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova. Clijsters is considered by her peers as one of the most likeable players on the WTA Tour. Her Grand Slam title dispels past criticisms that being "as well nice" has prevented her from ever winning a major.

On September 15, 2005, it was announced that the cooperation between Clijsters and her coach Marc De Hous would come to an end. De Hous had brought her during the three years they worked together, to the number one spot on the WTA ranking, two Masters titles and a Grand Slam victory but thought it to be time to do something else. Clijsters will take no new coach but will continue on her own.

Clijsters has reportedly said that she will play for another two years at most because of the toll that tennis has taken on her body.

Coaches
1992-1996: Bart Van Kerckhove; he saw Clijsters as an 11 year old and was certain she would make it as a top 10 player in the world. 1996-2002: Carl Maes 2002-2005: Marc Dehous

Retirement?
Recently, Clijsters has given indications that she will retire from tennis soon. "We believe We might prevent at a prevent of 2007. The immune system is already yielding pine tree state very much of problems," Clijsters said. Clijsters has had a career marred by several injuries including a career-threatening wrist injury. [http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news?slug=reu-clijsters&prov=reuters&type=lgns]

Records
2003 She became the second woman to reach at least the semifinals of all the tournaments she entered (except for her second round defeat in Toronto). Only Monica Seles duplicated that feat. When she became world number one in August she not only became the first Belgian - man or woman - to accomplish that feat, she also became the first world number one without a Grand Slam victory (a feat later duplicated by Frenchwoman Amelie Mauresmo) and one of the few women to be both world number one in singles and doubles.

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.

On September 10, she won the 2005 US Open, defeating Mary Pierce in two sets: 6-3, 6-1.

She had a 22 match winning streak since August till October [wins in Los Angeles (5), Toronto (4), U.S. Open (7), Luxembourg (4) and Filderstadt (1)].

Trademark Move
Kim Clijsters is often written off by critics as "as well nice", although she smacks her groundstrokes with authority and defends as if her life depended on it. In response to critics' complaints, she famously replied, "Busy people don't own to hate the opponent to beat the two." Upon defeating Maria Sharapova, Sharapova commented that Clijsters always forces her to "hit that additional shot." One of her trademark movements on the court that makes a Clijsters match so enjoyable to watch are her split squash shots. She hacks downward on the racket with an open face, creating a vicious underspin which neutralizes a ball. She owns this technique by doing a split on the courts as she executes this superb defensive tactic. The technique doesn't necessarily allow for her to reach further, rather, it dissipates her momentum and allows her to make a quick recovery towards the center, thereby preventing the court from being opened up and giving her more time to take the next ball.

Family life
She is the daughter of a succesful soccer player, Lei Clijsters and a Belgian gymnastics champion, Els Vandecaetsbeek.

She announced her engagement to long-time partner Australian player Lleyton Hewitt in November 2003, but they split up in October 2004. Her current boyfriend, the 27-year old American Brian Lynch, is a professional basketball player with the team of Clijsters' home town Bree.

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

Titles (40)

Singles (29)

Singles Finalist (14)

Performance Timeline

Doubles (11)