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Post by Admin on Jul 3, 2020 18:37:11 GMT
The 37 year old Clijsters will move to the United States along with her husband Brian Lynch and her children. Lynch, a former basketball player and now coach, is from the United States where his family is based. It is being reported that Lynch could also work with an NBA club once they move. Clijsters was in the United States with her family when the tennis circuit was shutdown and she remained there for a while before coming back to Belgium. Now, she is set to return to the United States and will continue working on her comeback from there. Clijsters is set to participate in World Team Tennis from July 12 to August 1, an American team competition that will take place in West Virginia for three weeks .The Cincinnati event and the US Open are scheduled to be held in New York in August and it remains to be seen if Clijsters will play in those tournaments. Kim Clijsters has been a world No. 1 in both singles and doubles, having held both rankings simultaneously in 2003. She has wonsix Grand Slam tournament titles, four in singles and two in doubles. Clijsters became the first Belgian player to attain the No. 1 ranking. She has won 41 singles titles and 11 doubles titles on the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Tour and was a three-time winner of the WTA Tour Championships. She has won the US Open and the Australian Open in singles and Wimbledon and the French Open in doubles. Clijsters initially retired from tennis in 2007 at the age of 23 to get married and have a daughter. She returned to the sport two years later and won her second US Open title as an unranked player in just her third tournament on her return. She defended her title the following year and then won the Australian Open in 2011 en route to becoming the first mother to be ranked No. 1 by the WTA. Along with Margaret Court, she also holds the record for most Grand Slam singles titles won as a mother, with three such titles, and was the first to win one since Evonne Goolagong Cawley in 1980. Clijsters retired again following the 2012 US Open. Earlier this year, after more than seven years away from the circuit, Clijsters began her second comeback at the Dubai Tennis Championships and the Monterrey event before the tennis shutdown, where she lost in the first round of both events.
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Post by Admin on Jul 19, 2020 22:53:00 GMT
Former World No. 1 Kim Clijsters has won her fourth singles match in a row at the World TeamTennis event, this time beating former US Open champion Sloane Stephens. The 37 year old Clijsters returned to the tour in February after more than seven years away. She played two events in her comeback, losing in the first round of the WTA Dubai Open and WTA Monterrey Open before the tour shutdown due to the global pandemic. Clijsters was playing for the New York Empire team while Stephens was playing for the Chicago Smash team. The Belgian also played in the women's doubles and mixed doubles matches on Friday. While Clijsters and Neal Skupski won the mixed doubles match, Clijsters was beaten in the women's doubles match partnering with German Sabine Lisicki. The Chicago Smash team went on to win the tie 22-21 over the New York Empire team. Chicago Smash 22, New York Empire 21 Mixed Doubles - Neal Skupski Kim Clijsters (Empire) def. Rajeev Ram Bethanie Mattek-Sands (Smash), 5-4 Women's Doubles - Mattek-SandsEugenie Bouchard (Smash) def. Clijsters Sabine Lisicki (Empire), 5-2 Men's Doubles - Skupski Jack Sock (Empire) def. Ram Brandon Nakashima (Smash), 5-4 Women's Singles - Clijsters (Empire) def. Sloane Stephens (Smash), 5-2 Men's Singles - Nakashima (Smash) def. Sock (Empire), 5-4 Extended Play - Men's Singles - Nakashima (Smash) def. Sock (Empire), 1-0 Supertiebreaker - Men's Singles - Nakashima (Smash) def. Sock (Empire), 1-0 (7-5 tiebreaker)
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Post by Admin on Jul 28, 2020 20:50:22 GMT
White Sulphur Springs, W. Va.—Sofia Kenin got a chance to face her idol Kim Clijsters in World TeamTennis action earlier this season and it didn't go the way she wanted. Now she's eager for a second chance. On July 15, New York Empire's Clijsters would beat Kenin 5-3, helping her team top Philadelphia 25-17. Kenin said the experience of facing the four-time Grand Slam champion was different than what she expected. She'd met Clijsters before, as a five-year-old trailing her at the Miami Open in the now-famous video, and in Dubai for media obligations earlier this year. But she had not seen her across from the net, and never expected to. "When I found out she was coming back I was super excited," the 21-year-old says. "Of course, I wanted to play her. It's good for us and for Fila. It's a great story. It brings back a lot of memories. There are a lot of things behind it." Kenin, the highest-ranked female player at No. 4, has been strong for the top-ranked Freedoms. She's 8-3 in singles sets—complete with a win over Venus Williams—and her team is 9-2 on the season. Her loss to Clijsters was early in the season and the Belgian has been sidelined from singles since July 18 with injuries. "I guess my nerves got the better of me when I played her even though it's not a full match," Kenin said. "It was just a little bit different because I've always looked up to her." Philadelphia has a rematch with New York on Thursday, but odds are that Kenin takes on CoCo Vandeweghe instead of Clijsters. Vandeweghe and her doubles partner Nicole Melichar were a late Sunday night trade from the San Diego Aviators to the New York Empire. Clijsters teammates Kveta Peschke and Sabine Lisicki are now Aviators. "Kim was the wild card," New York coach Luke Jensen says. "Lots of load management with three kids after nine years away. You know coming in she's extremely serious about this comeback to the tour and using this WTT season as a springboard to give her a lot of pressure competition. But seeing that it's day to day and the emotional [and physical] drain we are not really certain to have Clijsters in the lineup. We looked at options."
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Post by Admin on Jul 29, 2020 23:28:29 GMT
Tennis Hall of Famer Martina Hingis has sided with Roger Federer and called for the WTA and ATP to merge, saying the governing bodies would be ‘stronger together’.
The five-time Grand Slam champion was speaking to the Handelszeitung website when she said it would benefit the female tennis players outside the highest-ranked if there was a merger.
The Swiss star said uniting the men’s and women’s bodies was “probably long overdue” and that the Covid-19 pandemic was the ideal time for them to join forces.
Hingis has backed the idea, but she admitted it won’t be as easy as it seems.
Grand Slam tournaments offer the same prize money for both men and women, but smaller tournaments still have a disparity.
Martina Hingis backs Federer proposal Hingis admitted it would be difficult because forging equal prize money from the smaller tournament could be detrimental to them due to a lack of funds.
"I would see it (the merger) positively. The association would have a stronger position than the tournament organisers,” she said.
“It could also be a lever to align the system and also the prize money.
“Aligning [prize money] them at the smaller events could be difficult because many tournaments would then disappear due to the suddenly larger budget.
“Most players cannot live from sport. This problem can only be solved if sport has a higher status in society, which means that more money is invested in sport.”
Tennis enjoys a massive worldwide following but its governance remains fractious with as many as seven associations running different parts the game.
“I am picturing a merger between the WTA and ATP,” Federer tweeted.
“I am not talking about merging competition on the court, but merging the 2 governing bodies (ATP and WTA) that oversee the men's and women's professional tours ...”
Besides the ATP and the WTA Tours, the sport is also controlled by the International Tennis Federation and the boards of the four grand slam tournaments.
“It's too confusing for the fans when there are different ranking systems, different logos, different websites, different tournament categories,” Federer added.
“It probably should have happened a long time ago, but maybe now is really the time.
“These are tough times in every sport and we can come out of this with 2 weakened bodies or 1 stronger body.”
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Post by Admin on Jul 31, 2020 6:06:11 GMT
2010 champion Kim Clijsters will make a long-awaited return to the Western & Southern Open as one of five wildcards, which include four Grand Slam champions, announced by the tournament on Thursday. Clijsters' inclusion in the field brings the total of past Western & Southern Open champions entered to compete to six, as the 2010 winner joins past champions Madison Keys, Kiki Bertens, Garbiñe Muguruza, Karolina Pliskova and Serena Williams in the field. The tournament's initial player field was announced on Wednesday, which included five members of the Top 10 and 2019 champion Madison Keys. The Belgian, who announced a return to professional tennis after a nearly eight-year hiatus ahead of the 2020 season, will contest her third tournament of the year after appearances in Dubai and Monterrey before the tour's hiatus as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
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