| Kim Clijsters upset our girls in Miami Belgian tennis player Kim Clijsters became the winner of the first category BTA tournament with a prize fund of $3.1 million in Miami. In the last four meetings, Kim played against girls from the top ten of the world rankings and did not lose a single game to her opponents. Among the athletes defeated by Clijsters are three Russians. These are the heroines of last season, Roland Garros winner Anastasia Myskina, two-time Grand Slam finalist Elena Dementieva and, finally, Wimbledon and WTA Championship winner Maria Sharapova, who lost to the Belgian in the final with a score of 3:6, 5: 7. Kim had 17 official fights this year and won 16 of them. Taking into account her excellent performance at the previous tournament of a similar rank in Indian Wells, the unbeaten streak of the former first racket of the world amounted to 14 matches.
All of our girls’ successes last year occurred precisely in those Grand Slam competitions that Clijsters missed due to a wrist injury. Having finally gotten rid of the problems with her sore arm, the Belgian is rapidly returning to the upper floors of the individual classification. She won the title at Indian Wells while ranking 133rd in the WTA rankings, a record for category 1 tournaments. Never before has a tennis player, ranked in the second hundred of the world hierarchy, won such a prestigious tournament. The Belgian immediately climbed 95 steps up, and after Saturday's success in Miami she will not only receive another check for $400 thousand, but will also climb higher in the ranking, ending up in the coveted Top 20 list - at 17th place.
Sharapova, despite losing in the final, led the WTA championship race. Here, points are calculated on an accumulative basis as the season progresses, and the top eight players from this list will receive the right to take part in the final Women's Tennis Association Championship. In the semi-finals, Maria managed to break the four-year hegemony of the Williams sisters in Miami. Sharapova beat the eldest of them - Venus - with a score of 6:4, 6:3. In another match at this stage of the tournament, Clijsters simply crushed the Frenchwoman Amelie Mauresmo - 6:1, 6:0. In the decisive match the fight turned out to be stubborn, but it all ended in two games. “I lived four incredible weeks,” Clijsters admitted. — After Indian Wells, experts were unanimously surprised: how is it possible, just after returning from all these unpleasant injuries, to win seven matches in a row against girls from the elite? Now, in Miami, I am even happier. And not only because she beat everyone again. It’s very nice to see again the familiar faces of our rivals and friends, some of the guys from the ATP tour. I haven’t met someone for over a year because of my problems. Now I’m finally living a full tennis life.”
There was a long pause in the finale. The Russian and Belgian had just started the match, having managed to take two games each, when the referee interrupted the match due to rain and strong wind. After almost an hour of downtime, Clijsters managed to take her opponent's serve and she took the lead. In the next set, bad weather conditions continued to hamper the tennis players. Breaks knocked the athletes out of the rhythm of the game. At the end of the game, Clijsters saved two set points, made a break and removed all questions about the winner of the match.
“I was careless on simple shots, I didn’t always take advantage of my chances to win my points,” Sharapova said. - On the other hand, I'm happy for Kim. She showed that she is in excellent physical shape. It seemed as if the Belgian could spend the whole day on the court. For me in Miami, the most important thing was to forget about the defeat of Lindsay Davenport in Indian Wells, where I could not take a single game. Everything seems to be fine with me. Probably, because of the bad weather, we didn’t show our best tennis in the final, but there’s nothing you can do about it.”
The series of women's tournaments in North America continues. This week the girls move from the hard courts to the green clay of Amelia Island. True, these competitions have the status of the second category and a much smaller prize fund - 585 thousand dollars. Clijsters and her compatriot Justine Henin-Hardenne are not going to compete here, and Russia from among the leading players will be represented by Myskina, Dementieva, Vera Zvonareva and Nadezhda Petrova . Ilya TRISVIATSKY |
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