Cincinnati Women’s Open 2010: Kim Clijsters beat Maria Sharapova to win title
Born on 8 June 1983 in the city of Bilzen, Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters is a professional tennis player from Belgium. The former top ranked tennis star from the women’s side is currently ranked number three in the world by WTA.
The twenty seven years old Clijsters has so far won a total of thirty eight WTA singles trophies as well as eleven WTA doubles crowns in her career. She grabbed the US Open title back in 2005 as well as in 2009. The Bree resident has also captured the WTA Tour tournaments title back in 2002 as well as the following year. As far as Kim’s doubles stats are concerned, Kim has won the clay court French Open as well as the grass court Grand Slam doubles title back in 2003.
The 1.74 meters tall Kim was also a singles runner up on two occasions at the French Open tournament as well as a onetime runner up at the hard court Australian Open championship. Clijsters retired from the international game of tennis back in 2007. However, two years later, Kim once again returned to the WTA tour for the 2009 summer hard court season with effect from 26 March 2009. In just her third championship back, the Belgian tennis ace captured her second United States Open crown, having entered the Flushing Meadows as a wild card entrant.
As far as her recent performances are concerned, the Belgian tennis sensation, Kim Clijsters has won the Cincinnati Women’s Open title 2010 after defeating her Russian opponent, Maria Sharapova in a total of three sets. The final match score was 3-6 7-6 (7-4) 6-2.
Kim Clijsters came back strongly after losing the first set and won three match points on her way to win the final battle in Cincinnati.
The fifteen ranked Maria despite winning the first set couldn’t survive in the next two sets of the match. The Belgian fourth seeded Kim on the other hand, did well to come back immediately in the second set that further boosted her confidence level to win the decisive set of the match as well.
As a result, Kim won the Cincinnati Open title 2010 as her third title of the season.
"It was a tight clash and at one stage I thought I would lose it however thankfully I won it in the end. I was not serving at my very best against Maria but my baseline game supported me in winning the third title of the year”, said Kim after the match.
She further added, “The dark clouds that stopped our game for some time helped me a lot in reconsidering my game plan and I came back with a different approach on the court and played aggressively that did the trick for me in the end. I am really glad to hold this trophy”.
Both of them had not faced each other since Kim made a comeback last season after her two years break from the game of tennis. Maria who had been looking for her twenty third career title after wins earlier this year at Memphis as well as Strasbourg, started off the final battle in a dominant fashion however couldn’t maintain her dominance till the end.
As far as the last year’s US Open winner Kim Clijsters is concerned, she must have been pleased with the thunderstorm that came when Sharapova, who just a few days ago was defeated in the final of the Stanford by Victoria Azarenka, needed only a single game to win the title.
However, the Belgian after coming back won the tie-break and shocked Sharapova who was so close to victory. In the end, the twenty seven years old Kim won the final in a time period of two hours and twenty seven minutes. The title came as her thirty eight singles crown of her career.
Sharapova after the match said, "I had a great week. The entire crowd here really supported me well throughout the tournament. Congratulations to Clijsters on a superb match and superb championship”.
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