Clijsters remains a formidable force
TORONTO -- Impatience was in the air as Kim Clijsters began the second leg of her comeback at the Rogers Cup in Toronto. The Black Eyed Peas' toe-tapping "Let's Get it Started" blared over the PA as Clijsters and opponent Elena Baltacha casually warmed up Tuesday night. In the stands, spectators nostalgically watched the former No. 1 bobbing on the baseline and waited to see if she was still the same player they remembered.
Clijsters might have been the most impatient one of all. Baltacha was still sitting in her chair when the Belgian strode to the baseline, ready to serve. Fans were still scrambling for seats as she tossed the ball into the air.
Clijsters also began the match at a fast pace, quickly taking a 3-0 lead and bringing to mind last week's popular joke about keeping babysitting costs down. Back at the hotel, bedtime neared for Clijsters' 17-month-old daughter, Jada. She would be asleep by the time Mom completed a less-than-convincing 6-3, 6-4 victory against the gritty British qualifier.
On Wednesday, Clijsters raised her level significantly to score an impressive 7-5, 4-6, 6-1 win over rising star Victoria Azarenka, ranked ninth in the world. Azarenka initially took a 4-1 lead and looked like she might simply overpower her opponent, but Clijsters' more versatile combination of offense and superb defense eventually prevailed.
And so the "Kim-possible" comeback continues to gather steam. She has been away for two years, but Clijsters, remarkably, appears to have made up most of that ground in only two weeks.
In her first tournament back at the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati last week, she defeated world No. 11 Marion Bartoli in the first match and recorded a win over French Open champ Svetlana Kuznetsova before falling to world No. 1 Dinara Safina.
Her opponents have not hesitated to predict a quick return to the top 10, and she will even be somewhere among the crowded group of favorites at the U.S. Open, where in 2005 she won her lone Slam.
Disheartened by injuries and disillusioned by life on the circuit, a 24-year-old Clijsters retired in May 2007 to marry her boyfriend, basketballer Brian Lynch, and start a family. She threw herself into her new life and paid little attention to tennis other than keeping in touch with the friends she had often emphasized she valued more than winning matches.
But after being asked to play a mixed-doubles exhibition at Wimbledon this May, Clijsters, now 26, began training again and found herself intrigued by the challenge presented by a return to competition.
"It was more the personal -- trying to get back into shape and really trying to improve my tennis to see if I could still compete with the girls up there," she said. "It had nothing to do with missing the lifestyle or anything."
Always one of the most popular players on the circuit, she has been welcomed back into the fold.
"It was very nice to see her back," Elena Dementieva told ESPN.com. "It was not a big surprise for me [that she came back]. She is still pretty young and she was always very athletic.
"I was watching her matches. I was really impressed by the way she was playing. It's like she never had a break, you know? And she was enjoying so much."
But while time seems to have stood still for Clijsters on court, it's clear she's in a different place off the court.
"It's strange to see her in the locker room with her husband and a little girl," Dementieva said. "You just feel -- yeah, that's a good perspective … a lot happened."
Splits on the sidelines
Kim Clijsters' shoe-screeching splits used to be the Belgian's signature move before she retired two years ago to start a family. Now a mother and back on the circuit, the 26-year-old Clijsters says she won't be doing the acrobatic feat quite as often.
"It's not that it's hard [now], I just want to try to avoid it to prevent injuries," she said.
"It could help me at some points, and it could really confuse my opponents sometimes and they would miss an easier shot or something, but I really felt like the points afterward I really struggled.
"I felt like my hip injuries were something that were coming from the sliding and just the pressure out there with that shot.
"So I'm going to try to not use it."
But fear not, the move may still make an appearance when the occasion demands.
"I know if I'm in a tough match and the atmosphere is there and everything, of course it's going to come out," Clijsters admitted. "But I'm just going to try to hopefully be fast enough to get there without the slide."
Clijsters has enjoyed the reunion with her colleagues, as well as the legion of drivers, tournament staff and various others she befriended during her past days on tour.
"They're all excited to see the baby. It's been two years, so I'm quite excited to see them all again, too," she said of her fellow players.
But with husband and baby in tow, the player dubbed the "Miss Congeniality" of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour doesn't have the same time for socializing she once did.
"Now I just try to do my thing and do what I have to do here and just go to the hotel and spend time with the family," she said.
"That's something that probably has changed a lot. In the past I didn't mind hanging around and watching other matches. Now I just have so much else to look forward to when I go back to the hotel room."
There was sadness as well as joy during the intervening two years. Clijsters' father Leo, famous in his own right as a soccer player in Belgium, died early this year after a battle with lung cancer. No longer on the circuit, Clijsters was grateful she and her husband were able to spend significant time with her father before he died.
Clijsters' return after such a long and eventful period away has prompted discussion about what her immediate success says about the state of the women's game. But given that Clijsters seems to have lost none of her ability, and that many of her former rivals -- Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Dementieva -- are still at the top of the game, it is not a surprise.
After defeating Azarenka, Clijsters observed that the generation that has come up in her absence does not yet have the range she and her contemporaries have developed.
"I think a lot of the girls these days that are up there, they play a very similar game," Clijsters said.
"They play like this is a perfect game, playing that aggressive tennis, stepping in and just really hitting the ball over the net and not giving your opponent a lot of chances. But then on the other hand, if that doesn't go the way that they want it to go, I feel like the Plan B is not always there.
"Look at like a Venus, Serena, even Justine [Henin], even myself: If we're not playing our best game, we still have a Plan B."
Now that she has reestablished herself as a formidable force, Clijsters will find other players -- even those one-dimensional ones -- more geared up when facing her, and that challenge might increase as her game becomes a known quantity again. However warmly they have greeted her return, the rest of the tour will not be willing to grant her any favors on the court.
Shaking hands after her win Tuesday night, Clijsters moved in for a friendlier cheek kiss, only to be left hanging with Baltacha already making her way to the chair.
Welcome back, Kim. But it's back to business, too.
Kamakshi Tandon is a freelance tennis writer for ESPN.com.
