The first time Kim Clijsters entered the US Open, all the way back in 1999, she faced a certain someone by the name of Serena Williams.
The first time Kim Clijsters entered the U.S. Open, all the way back in 1999, she faced a certain someone by the name of Serena Williams.
All these years later, with play at Flushing Meadows set to begin Monday, three-time U.S. Open champion Clijsters is back on the scene, out of retirement at age 37 and entered in a Grand Slam tournament for the first time since 2012.
And Williams, less than a month from turning 39, is still at the top of tennis, the runner-up in New York each of the past two years and at four of the past seven major championships.
Asked to name a moment that sticks in her memory, Clijsters pointed to that first meeting against Williams, who won 4-6, 6-2, 7-5 in the third round and would go on to claim the first of her 23 Grand Slam trophies.
“It was an incredible match. The atmosphere was great. For me, that kind of, I think, started the energy that I feel here when I play here,” said Clijsters, who won the U.S. Open in 2005, 2009 (defeating Williams in the final) and 2010, along with the 2011 Australian Open.
“Any night match that you get to play here at the U.S. Open on Arthur Ashe is incredible,” she said.
“It’s nothing like anything else anywhere else.”
As for Clijsters’ thoughts on Williams and the possibility of equaling Margaret Court’s total of 24 Slam singles titles?
“The great results she had, not even a year after her daughter was born playing Grand Slam finals, competing for Grand Slam titles was, I think, incredible,” Clijsters said.
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