Clijsters Focuses on No. 1

Isn’t the party for Kim Clijsters supposed to be today?

Instead, there were air horns and applause at the Home Depot Center on Saturday night during her semifinal match against Francesca Schiavone at the JPMorgan Chase Open.

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The ambient noise from the Galaxy game next door was merely the soundtrack during the top-seeded Clijsters’ 7-5, 6-4 victory against No. 16 Schiavone before about 2,200.

“I wish I could be out there watching. I love watching soccer,” said Clijsters, whose father, Leo, played for the Belgian national team. “It’s different. It’s the first time I’ve ever played where 100 meters away there’s a soccer match going on. It can be tough sometimes. In the beginning it was OK. But the closer it went to kickoff time, it was getting more and more noisy.”

She blocked out the noise and blunted the effectiveness of Schiavone with a few well-placed lobs in the second set.

“I used good tactics, but at the end I needed to finish the points better,” Schiavone said. “She’s a better player because she’s played a lot of semifinals and big tournaments like the Grand Slams. She can play the important moments better.”

The experience showed. Clijsters found herself down an early service break in the first set and trailed, 2-4, in the second but seemed to get into Schiavone’s head with the lobs. Once, the Italian missed a smash and it almost became a domino effect.

“If you miss your first one, even if the lobs aren’t as good, there’s always a little doubt in your mind,” Clijsters said. “You think, ‘I missed the previous one, I have to make this one.’ And then maybe you choke a little bit on that one.”

And now, after a 1-hour 26-minute victory, it’s down to one match to one.

Today, Clijsters can become the 12th player to reach the No. 1 ranking on the WTA Tour if she beats Lindsay Davenport.

Davenport, seeded second, defeated Ai Sugiyama of Japan, 6-2, 6-1, in 56 minutes in the first semifinal, which was barely competitive. Davenport has lost to Sugiyama only once in nine meetings.

Davenport is one of the 11 to reach the top spot. Her last stay at No. 1 was from Nov. 2001 to Jan. 13, 2002. She became No. 1 again in November 2001 by beating Clijsters in the semifinals of the season-ending WTA Championships but has lost to her in five of their last six matches, including the semifinals of the Acura Classic in Carlsbad last Saturday.

Their series is 6-6, and oddly, Clijsters does not feel as though she is the overwhelming favorite.

“I still feel like the underdog a lot of the time,” she said, citing Davenport’s career accomplishments.

Davenport said it was merely a matter of time before Clijsters ascends to the top because the current No. 1, Serena Williams, is injured and won’t be playing the U.S. Open, which begins Aug. 25.

Of the 12 women, Clijsters would be the only one not to have won a Grand Slam. But there is a precedent on the men’s side. When Marcelo Rios of Chile reached the No. 1 ranking in 1998, he had not won a Slam and still hasn’t.

With her success in 2003, it’s easy to forget that Clijsters struggled last year. She lost in the third round of the French Open, the second at Wimbledon and the fourth at the U.S. Open. Additionally, she suffered from a serious arm injury and went through a coaching change.

During this time, she said she got advice from legends Martina Navratilova, Pam Shriver and John McEnroe.

Mac apparently was the motivator.

“He was just saying I’m a good enough player and capable of doing it and that I was still young,” Clijsters said. “Little things that fire you up and get you motivated. For a while there, it was hard.”

She gave all three of them credit.

“That’s been another part where I’ve learned a lot even when I was not playing my best tennis,” Clijsters said. “Without those things and without those things the people said, I probably wouldn’t have been in the position I am right now.”