Kim Clijsters confirms her retirement after US Open 2012 – Tennis News
Former world number one, Kim Clijsters, will be playing her last ever tournament in the professional circuit at Wimbledon. She has decided to say goodbye to the world of tennis at the end of year’s final Grand Slam Championship,
the US Open, and made it crystal clear that this is her final retirement decision.
Clijsters stated in a response to question from a journalist who was curious that will this be a final retirement decision by the Belgian who reversed her previous retirement decision almost three years ago, “No, this is it. If
that’s where you’re going, this is it."
The Belgian superstar who celebrated her 29th birthday on June 8 will return to Wimbledon for the second time in the past six years. She wasn’t able to contest on four different occurrences due to niggling injuries.
In a query that why she was making the decision of leaving the professional tennis, the 47th ranked Belgian confessed, “Too old. Too old to play the game that I want to play physically. I’ve put my body through enough
strain and everything. The whole lifestyle, that’s what I’m dealing with now, the lifestyle I’ve had for the last 15, 20 years. It’s been great. I wouldn’t change it for a thing. But I’m not going to be the type of player that’s going to change the way I play
or the way that I move." She is the only the third woman in the world to win Grand Slam after becoming a mother.
Clijsters won four Grand Slam Championships; three of them included the US Open in 2005, 2009 and 2010. The other major title was won in Melbourne, the Australian Open, in 2011. With the triumph in the year’s first Grand Slam Championship,
she reached the top of the world rankings; dethroning the former world number one, Caroline Wozniacki.
However, her stay at the top was just for a short period of time. She couldn’t play the entire WTA Tour to save some points and create a stronghold at the top. Her spot was soon taken over by the Dane superstar, Wozniacki, who
held that spot until the end of this year’s edition of the Australian Open.
She further added, “I naturally have that strong movement, powerful shots, and that’s been able to have me on top of women’s tennis.” World will miss a technically very strong athlete who has given a lot of new strokes to this
sport. Clijsters will go down in the history as one of the best players of the modern era.
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