Kim Clijsters retires; Zheng Jie advances into the third round – Rogers Cup 2011
Second seed, Belgian Kim Clijsters was leading 6-3, 1-2 when she was forced to retire due to abdominal injury in her opening match. Chinese qualifier Zheng Jie, on the other hand, automatically advanced into the third round of the Rogers Cup 2011, a WTA Premier event held on the hard courts in Toronto, Canada, on Tuesday.
Ranked number one in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings in February this season, Clijsters was leading a set but faced another injury and was eventually forced to retire from the match.
"During my warm-up today I felt my left stomach muscle really, really tight," Clijsters said. "Before the match I got taped to try and protect the muscle as much as possible, but it just went worse and worse. I already had an ultrasound here on-site, and I have a partial tear in my left stomach muscle… I have a few weeks until the US Open. I'll do everything to be ready."
The winner of the Australian Open 2011, Clijsters jumped to the top rank in February. However, several injuries including foot injury through dancing on a wedding led her to the second rank again.
Clijsters made a nervy start at the Rexall Centre and lost her opening serve. However, she roared back with a fit reply as she broke the Chinese serve in the very next game to level the scores at 1-1. The Belgian broke again in the fourth game to take a 3-1 lead and later exchanged a break to eventually bag the opener with a 6-3 score line.
28-year-old Belgian spilled many errors, six double faults and clobbered a poor first serve share of 49 percent as compared to Jie’s 60 percent. Clijsters also saved only two out of four breakpoints faced but covered it up by converting three out of six breakpoint opportunities to her advantage and by registering an impressive 76 percent win on her first serve share.
She kept her winning rhythm in the second set and broke the Chinese’s serve in the very first game. Despite losing her edge in the proceeding game, she was serving in the fourth game when the Belgian suffered unbearable pain and was left behind with no other option than to retire.
The qualifier, ranked eighty places below her, on the other hand automatically advanced into the third round where she will face the winner of the match between German Julia Goerges and a former world number one, American Serena Williams. Jie earned success against the Belgian for the first in their fourth meeting and lowered trail in their head-to-head series by 1-3.
Tags: