‘Grown-Up’ Clijsters Comes Back Strong

The transformation of Kim Clijsters from Belgium to “Aussie Kim” back to Belgian Kim has taken hold after two very public traumas: a career-threatening left wrist injury needing surgery and one broken engagement to pro tennis player Lleyton Hewitt of Australia.

Clijsters spent time at home in Belgium recovering from surgery and rehabilitating, and in the process, rediscovering her lost teen-aged years, most of them devoted to tennis and Hewitt.

In a sense, in returning to Indian Wells, Clijsters has come full circle. This is where she first injured the wrist about a year ago, pulling out before her second match at the Pacific Life Open. Few thought it would come close to ending her career.

Wednesday, Clijsters was one of the few marquee players on the court. She took a positive step forward, looking like her old self, at times, in defeating Nicole Pratt of Australia, 6-2, 6-1, in 50 minutes before a sparse gathering at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

Afterward, the 21-year-old Clijsters was candid about her emotional growth during the difficult times, saying she felt “more mature.”

“For my career, it hasn’t been the best, but for my personal life it’s all been very good,” said the former No. 1 player who has reached four Grand Slam finals. “You learn so much more about yourself and you learn about life and about things that you want and things that you don’t want.”

Such as?

“Just me as a person, things that I would like to see or in the future, or anything. I don’t want to go too deep into things but just it made me a stronger person and a more grown-up person,” Clijsters said.

Until recently, home in Belgium felt more like away for Clijsters.

“It’s tennis and it’s what I do, but there’s a lot more than just tennis for me. Even now I’ve made so many friends,” she said. “Over the last five years I was more in Australia and now I was in Belgium I was able to meet a lot of people and do a lot of things that I’ve never been able to do.”

Clijsters thought her career could be over last fall after another setback with the wrist.

“You start thinking: ‘What am I going to do next? What am I interested in?’ ” she said. “You don’t accept that.... I missed tennis so much. I definitely felt like I wasn’t ready to quit. Not at all. If I would have had to, it would have been really tough. But luckily I’m feeling well now.”

She has played one tournament in 2005, reaching the quarterfinals in Antwerp, Belgium, losing to Venus Williams. Clijsters was not ready in time for the Australian Open in January, which turned into a television vehicle for Hewitt and girlfriend Bec Cartwright. He became engaged to Cartwright a few hours after losing the final to Marat Safin of Russia.

Hewitt and Clijsters were to have been married in February. Plans were moving along when news flashed across her website of the breakup in October. So much for “Aussie Kim.”

Hewitt’s Davis Cup teammate, Wayne Arthurs, made reference to that when he was listening to the list of previous Australian winners at Indian Wells.

“Didn’t Kim win one year as well?” he said, smiling.

Arthurs was chatting in the players’ lounge, standing, no small accomplishment. Jet lag meant he didn’t fall asleep until 3 a.m. Wednesday.

His recent travel schedule was nearly as impressive as his serve.

First, the serve: He has not been broken in 89 consecutive service games. The last man to break Arthurs was Taylor Dent, in the first round at Scottsdale, Ariz. Arthurs kept on going in Scottsdale, winning his first ATP Tour event, at age 33.

“There were a lot of e-mails from all my friends and friends that I haven’t seen in 10, 15 years,” he said.

His streak continued through the first round of Davis Cup at home in Australia on grass against Austria and in qualifying at Indian Wells. Arthurs defeated Juan Pablo Brzezicki of Argentina, 7-5, 7-6 (1), and will play wild card Brendan Evans today for a spot in the main draw.

The travel: Scottsdale to Los Angeles to Sydney for Davis Cup, and back to Southern California. His luggage was a day behind on the trip to Australia and Arthurs had to use Scott Draper’s rackets and Todd Reid’s shoes. All fine, except Reid’s foot size is half a size smaller than Arthurs.

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The best comeback of Day 1 went to Abigail Spears of San Diego, who saved two match points. She trailed, 5-2, in the third set and eventually defeated Lubomira Kurhajcova of Slovakia, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (0). Spears never thought she was out of it.

“No, I always try to fight for every point,” she said. “I just really got after myself, felt like I was just giving her the match.”