Belgian Doesn’t Waffle in Final

Once a gymnast’s daughter, always a gymnast’s daughter.

Arguably, Kim Clijsters’ riskiest move Saturday night occurred not on the tennis court, but shortly after the Belgian had crushed Mary Pierce of France, 6-3, 6-1, in the U.S. Open final.

She hopped into the photographers’ pit and made her way toward her mother Els, a former top gymnast in Belgium, and other family members and support staff in the stands, climbing on a narrow railing to get there. Visions of a ruined celebration may not have entered her mind, but those with less coordination than Clijsters surely entertained such thoughts.

People reached out to help, and Clijsters said she knew she was in “safe hands.” Give her an 8.0 for skill, 9.0 for presentation.

The tennis? Not a 10.0, but she didn’t need to flirt with perfection, not with an erratic Pierce on the other side of the net.

The fourth-seeded Clijsters, winning her first Grand Slam after four losing finals, broke No. 12 Pierce early and often, starting with the first game, then twice more in the first set and two times in the second, winning in 65 minutes. The 30-year-old Pierce, appearing in her first U.S. Open final, had 28 unforced errors, but at least she won two more games than she did in the French Open final against Clijsters’ countrywoman, Justine Henin-Hardenne.

Henin-Hardenne has been the major obstacle in Clijsters’ way at majors, defeating her in three of her four previous finals. Clijsters’ closest call came in her first Slam final when she lost, 12-10, in the third set to Jennifer Capriati at the French Open in 2001.

“There’s a time and place for everything,” said Clijsters, who earned $2.2 million, the largest payout in women’s sports, for winning the Open and the U.S. Open Series bonus.

“Maybe it wasn’t my time yet. ... Losing those Grand Slams, and not just the finals but losing to Serena Williams in Australia, those definitely motivate you to work harder.”

Clijsters always had the talent, the shot-making skills and a formidable athletic pedigree, which included her powerful legs, passed down from her father Leo, a former Belgian soccer star for the national team.

But her mental game often came up short, notably in the loss to Williams in the semifinals of the 2003 Australian Open, in which Clijsters held match points and blew a big lead.

Everything changed when Clijsters suffered a career-threatening left wrist injury in 2004. She needed surgery last year and missed the final three Slams. Then came her broken engagement to tennis star Lleyton Hewitt late last year and a more recent relationship with former Villanova basketball player Brian Lynch, who now plays in Belgium.

Clijsters returned to the tour last winter and appeared free of mental baggage, and went on to win back-to-back hard-court tournaments at Indian Wells and Miami. This summer, she continued her success on the hard courts, losing only once in four tournaments before the Open.

Clearly, Clijsters was better able to deal with adversity. She defeated Venus Williams in the quarterfinals here after losing the first set and being down a break in the second, and hardly seemed rattled after squandering five match points against Maria Sharapova of Russia in the semifinals.

“I think all that has definitely made me physically a stronger person too,” Clijsters said. “That’s definitely, in the last few matches, the biggest difference that I felt toward the other players. In the third set against Venus, I was fine. Against Maria, too.”

Said Pierce, who had her right thigh wrapped: “I knew in the very first game, when she came back to 30-30, I knew it was going to be tough, a very tough match. She’s got a different style than any girls I’ve played against this week, or these two weeks. You know, I haven’t played Kim in over a year and a half.

”... She made me play bad because she is quicker than all the other girls that I’ve played so far. She got another ball back every time. And even when I would hit a good shot that usually would either win a point or set up a winner for the next shot against other girls, Kim would hit another ball back and I’d know I’d just made a mistake.”

And so Clijsters, 22, has finally lost the burdensome tag of “best player never to win a Slam.”

“I had the idea that the media was making more of it, like a bigger deal of it than I was,” she said. “I was very motivated and working hard to try to do it.

“So now you don’t have to ask that anymore, but I’m sure you’ll find something new to ask,” she said, smiling.

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Box score

Kim Clijsters (4) def. Mary Pierce (12), 6-3, 6-1:

*--* Clijsters Category Pierce 72 First serve pct. 67 5 Aces 1 2 Double faults 1 79 First-serve winning pct. 52 38 Second-serve winning pct. 38 16 Total winners 7 19 Unforced errors 28 5-11 Break points 1-4 8-8 Net points 7-16 58 Total points won 38 * Time of Match: 1:05

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Source: Associated Press