KNOCKS OFF DAVENPORT

Clijsters brings home big victory

By Matthew Cronin
tennisreporters.net

Susan Mullane Camerawork USA, Inc.

PALO ALTO, CA., JULY 30 – Will Kim Clijsters beat her main squeeze, Lleyton Hewitt, to the Grand Slam winner's trophy stand?

Quite possibly, and unlike Lleyton, she won't be doing poor imitations of Rocky Balboa caving in Mr. T's ribs if she does it.

After out energizing Lindsay Davenport 6-4 5-7 (7-5), 6-1 to win the $565,000 Bank of West Classic on Sunday, the 18-year-old Belgian declared herself
ready to move into tennis' small elite circle of players. She took a huge step ahead in her young but promising career by winning her first title of the year by taking down a woman who had owned her in their four prior meetings. With the title, Clijsters is now ranked a career-high No. 5.

"If I can play throughout the year the way I played the last two days I can
make it hard for those other top five players," said Clijsters. "Today was
my fourth final this year and I'm really happy to finally win. I won a few
titles last year but this title means more to me because I've been in the
finals a few times this year but never had that extra step to finish it off."
While Davenport had outslugged Kim convincingly in previous contests, the
American's mediocre conditioning due to a long layoff she took due a knee
injury from in the late spring and early summer proved to be her undoing.
Even though Davenport played a gutsy tiebreaker to win the second set, she
appeared befuddled in the third set and was extremely erratic. "It was one of
those days when I wasn't 100 percent there," Davenport said. "I returned
awful, I wasn't going for my shots and was flat footed. I could never find
that energy to get myself aggressive."

Clijsters served extremely well and was running like the wind returning her
opponent's blasts to the corners, gamefully sliding hard to the ball on the
sun backed hard court. She was so game to beat Lindsay that she willing to
sacrifice a body part to take the contest.

"I actually burned my toe," Clijsters said. "I slid a hole through my shoe
and a hole in my sock and I actually felt it the beginning of the third set.
When I slid it was touching my skin a little bit. But I'm still alive. People
don't understand how I do it, but it's just natural for me." Clijsters didn't allow herself to get caught up in Davenport's favorite prison of crosscourt tennis, instead frequently playing the 6-foot-3 inch
Californian down the line. The Belgian also laid waste to Davenport's second
serve when she was given the opportunity. "I was more consistent, returning
well and I defended very well," Clijsters said. "I kept bringing the ball
back, moving her around and side to side and it worked."

FOLLOWING UP ON ROLAND GARROS SUCCESS
Clijsters reached the French Open final in June before falling 12-10 in third
set to Jennifer Capriati in a match that was there for the taking. But don't
forget, she's only been on tour for a couple years and it takes to time for
every player save for Hingis to learn which tendencies are keeping them from
advancing. The daughter of former European soccer star, Clijsters is a top
notch athlete with an authoritative game whose only real weakness appears to
be her lack of experience. She has a huge forehand and backhand that she can
belt in any direction, and an improving serve and return. There's no question
that she needs to put another 10 mph on her first serve and that she needs
more work at net, but Clijsters is a grinder who has few off-court
distractions – save for Lleyton screaming, "C'mon Balboa" at himself after
Kim passes him down the line in practice.

Kim said that if she is consistently knock off the likes of number
Hingis, Capriati, Venus and Davenport, she'll need to tame her wild side.
"I have to keep working and get the unforced errors out of my game, get more
confident, fitter, move and serve better," Clijsters said. "There are still a
lot of things I have to work on if I want to get that extra step. Last year I
beat Kournikova, Sanchez and Martinez but I was never able to beat the top
five players. This year when I beat Hingis at Indian Wells [she lost in the
final to Serena Williams], I felt closer to them and then at the French I
felt like I could make it harder for the top players. But I still made too
many unforced errors and against the top players, you can't do that. Now, I
feel like I do it less."

Davenport said that Clijsters is essentially already there as an elite
player, but tennisreporters.net got the sense that she isn't quite convinced that Kim can be a Slam titlist anytime soon. Lindsay denied that when questioned about it,
saying that Kim showed at Roland Garros that she's a few points shy of
greatness and that leaning to win finals comes with age.
Kim will still be 18 when the U.S. Open rolls around. If she can show this
week in San Diego that she can knock off a series of elite players back to
back, then tennisreporters.net will call her a real contender for the U.S. Open crown. But
beating an emotionally drained Meghann Shaughnessy and an unmotivated
Davenport doesn't prove that you can take a Williams or Capriati in Flushing
Meadows, N.Y.