She returned to tennis to ease the pain of losing her father and now Kim Clijsters is leaving the game again, this time for her daughter’s sake.
There will be no more sporting super-mum after the bubbly Belgian made a poignant if slightly premature grand slam exit with a surprise 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-5) second-round US Open loss to British teenager Laura Robson.
“It’s been an incredible journey,” Clijsters said. “It’s been a crazy rollercoaster at times.
“A lot of dreams for me have come true because of tennis. It’s not just the tennis side of things that you think about now; it’s about life.”
The 29-year-old retires for a second and final time as a four-times grand slam champion and two-times world No.1.
In Australia, the one-time fiancee of Lleyton Hewitt will forever be affectionately known as “Aussie Kim”, a label even Clijsters gave herself after finally landing the Australian Open crown last year.
Universally, though, she will most fondly be remembered for winning the 2009 US Open as a mother – little more than a month into her surprise return after taking more than two years out of the sport to get married and start a family.
Photos of Clijsters cradling the US Open trophy in one arm and holding toddler Jada’s hand with the other beamed around the world after her heart-warming second triumph at Flushing Meadows – four years after her first.
The victory came only eight months after the death of her football champion father Leo, Belgium’s 1988 player of the year.
“I never thought I would come back,” Clijsters said on Wednesday.
“After my dad passed away, it was the perfect release for me to deal with a lot of things.
“And at the same time to think on court about life and about what happens – and once in a while just smack the ball as hard as you can to get a lot of the frustration out.”
Clijsters admits she will miss tennis and will “always stay involved”, but says now it’s time to be a housewife and mother again for four-and-a-half year-old Jada.
“Even this week a couple times where she was like, ‘Why don’t you come with us to go out, to go for a walk?’, I’m like, ‘Mama is almost done. When I’m done with this tournament, I’ll be there and I’ll do all those fun things with you – or try at least’,” Clijsters said.
“So I think she’s going to be excited to kind of have her mum around more, on a more regular kind of basis.”
Clijsters returned to New York in 2010 to successfully defend her crown and then reigned at Melbourne Park to be the last woman to win back-to-back grand slams, with seven different players winning the past seven majors.
Defending Open champions Samantha Stosur and Novak Djokovic, along with Serena Williams, world No.1 Victoria Azarenka and Andy Murray, were among the stars to hail Clijsters for her spirit and sporting and championship qualities.
“It does something to you when you hear other players talk about me like that,” Clijsters said.
“Obviously in these two rounds that I’ve played here, I’ve played players that I spoke to and they said that I inspired them.
“That’s a great feeling because I was once in that situation as well. You think about those kind of things now.
“As a little girl, I got tennis racquets under the tree and outfits of Steffi Graf and Monica Seles and I would want to wear them to bed, I was so excited.”
