Clijsters steps up with victory of a career
By Greg GarberNEW YORK -- Entering this 2005 U.S. Open, based on her sizzling summer, Kim Clijsters was the prohibitive favorite on the women's side. This was a first.
Serena Williams came in with seven Grand Slam singles titles. Sister Venus has five. Justine Henin-Hardenne has four. Lindsay Davenport has three. Even 18-year-old Maria Sharapova has one. Mary Pierce, of all people, has two.
Clijsters has won more than $10 million and 27 titles, but not one of them was a Grand Slam. She has been close, reaching four finals in the last five years.
On Tuesday night -- and, eventually, Wednesday morning -- at Arthur Ashe Stadium, the Belgian found herself at a crossroads of sorts, if that is possible when one is still only 22. Down a set and 2-4 in the second to Venus Williams, the reigning Wimbledon champion, Clijsters was on the verge of failing in another big spot.
And yet, this time she rallied. In a momentous, breakthrough kind of way. The No. 4-seeded Clijsters won the quarterfinal match 4-6, 7-5, 6-1. The last stroke -- a wobbly forehand from Williams that sailed long -- came at 12:36 a.m. ET.
All things considered -- including Williams' complete and utter collapse in the third set -- it was probably the biggest win of Clijsters' life. Williams, who was broken in her last five service games and lost 11 of the last 13 overall, looked entirely spent at the end.
"I just kept hanging in there," Clijsters said. "Even though I wasn't playing my best tennis, I was fighting and defending well. It got her tired as well. We had a lot of long rallies.
"I started noticing that she wasn't running as well as she used to. I knew that if I would win that second set, I would have a good chance to win because I felt fine," she said.
"Obviously, I'm disappointed because I feel like I had a lot of opportunities to win the match," Williams said. "But at the end of the day, the best player usually wins, and she definitely played the best today."
Williams said the difference came in the second set when Clijsters started hitting "low-confidence shots, short and strange. It just threw me off. I'm not used to that pace, and it's just weird. Next thing I knew, I was playing as bad as she was. I guess maybe it was a good strategy."
Williams, in an almost offhand way, mentioned that her left "hip went out" and she suffered "a sharp pain" that "hurt my movement."
Clijsters advances to a Friday semifinal match against the top-seeded Sharapova, a 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 winner over Nadia Petrova in the earlier quarterfinal match. The 2-hour, 30-minute match -- featuring 98 unforced errors -- sent the Russian into her first U.S. Open semifinal and her third Grand Slam Final Four of the season.
Momentum has been a telling factor thus far at the Open. James Blake, winner of 10 straight matches and the story of the fortnight, has it. Venus, based on her relatively healthy status, had it going into her match against sister Serena.
Coming in, Clijsters had more of it than anyone.
After missing eight months last year with a serious wrist injury, she saw her WTA Tour ranking fall all the way to No. 134. Clijsters didn't return until February but has played in 12 events, winning a WTA Tour-high six, three of them over the summer. Her record on hard courts this season was 33-1, including 22 straight.
But in the Grand Slams, where seven matches in two weeks exact a serious physical toll, too much momentum can be a bad thing. Clijsters played four weeks in a row before taking only one week off before U.S. Open.
Williams came here via a different path, not playing a tournament in the four weeks leading up to the Open. There was a reason for that -- she was exhausted.
Much has been made of the last meeting between the two, a 7-5, 6-2 victory for Clijsters in the final at Stanford on July 31. On the surface, it was an impressive win because it ended an 0-for-3 Clijsters streak. But the reality was that Williams had just come through winning seven matches at Wimbledon, played two Fed Cup matches against Russia and arrived at Stanford less than 100 percent. She still managed to get to the final against Clijsters but later withdrew from two tournaments, citing the flu.
Re-energized, Williams ripped through the first three rounds but found her sister Serena sitting in the round of 16. The uneven quality of that match might have been deceiving. Clearly, Venus was emotionally conflicted. She, more than anyone, knew the fragile condition of her practice partner's left leg and ankle.
The most-anticipated match on the women's side so far didn't begin until 10:31 ET because the Sharapova-Petrova battle preceded it.
There were big, broad strokes, which made for sometimes brutal, inelegant tennis. Williams and Clijsters combined for 89 unforced errors and only 38 winners.
The first set came down to the 10th game, when Clijsters, serving to level it at 5-all, got tight and went for too much. Up 40-30, she hit a crazy forehand wide and followed it with an even wilder one. A tight, too-quick forehand into the net gave Williams the set.
The second set was similarly disjointed. It featured no fewer than seven breaks of serve before Clijsters weathered a four-deuce game and converted her third set point when Williams sent a weak forehand into the net.
As the match wore on, Williams' lack of fitness became evident. The inactivity of the last month went from an advantage to a liability. Toward the end of the second set, Clijsters was bouncing on her toes and Williams was dragging, stalling for time.
Clijsters broke Williams in the third game of the third set (a dreadful forehand sailed long) and again in the fifth (an errant backhand) and the seventh to take the match.
This will be a popular win. Clijsters is one of the nicest, most engaging players in tennis and she has overcome career-threatening adversity. Toward the end, the crowd seemed at least evenly split between the two players, a remarkable achievement for a foreign player playing an American.
With four players left, does she feel like the favorite?
"I don't know," Clijsters said. "A lot of people have been saying that. They have given me that name. It's a compliment, but I'm not thinking that much about it because I know I have some big matches ahead of me."
Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
