Kim Clijsters Bio
Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters is a Belgian former professional tennis player who was ranked world No. 1 in women’s singles by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) for 20 weeks and world No. 1 in women’s doubles for four weeks, holding both rankings simultaneously in 2003. Over the course of her career, she won 41 singles titles and 11 doubles titles on the WTA Tour, including four singles majors and two doubles majors. Clijsters was renowned for her athleticism, defensive speed, and controlled aggression from the baseline. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2017.
Standing 174 cm tall and playing right-handed with a two-handed backhand, Clijsters competed professionally from 1997 in an era dominated by rivalries with compatriot Justine Henin and Serena Williams. She helped establish Belgium as a leading force in women’s tennis alongside Henin, and she remains one of the most popular and well-liked players of her generation.
Early Life and Background
Kim Clijsters was born on 8 June 1983 in Bilzen, a small town in northeastern Belgium. She grew up with her younger sister Elke in the nearby town of Bree in the Flemish province of Limburg. Clijsters is the daughter of Lei Clijsters and Els Vandecaetsbeek, both of whom were accomplished athletes. Her mother was a Belgian national artistic gymnastics champion, and her father was a professional soccer defender who played for clubs in the top-flight Belgian First Division, including KV Mechelen, with whom he won the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup in 1988. Lei also represented the Belgium national soccer team, earning 40 caps and competing in two World Cups.
Clijsters credits her parents for giving her a footballer’s legs and a gymnast’s flexibility, traits that became defining features of her playing style. When she was five years old, her father built a clay tennis court at their home to celebrate winning the 1988 Gouden Schoen, the player of the year award in the Belgian First Division. Clijsters began playing tennis earlier that year after attending a lesson with her cousins and uncle while her parents were away, and she became fixated on the sport from that moment on.
She started training at the Tennisdel club in Genk by the age of seven. Her first coach, Bart Van Kerckhoven, later recalled that she was extremely energetic and never wanted to leave the court, often joining the warm-ups of the next group after completing her own training session. At the age of nine, Clijsters began working with Benny Vanhoudt in Diest, training fifteen hours a week. She continued in Diest until she was twelve, at which point Carl Maes took over as her primary coach at the Flemish Tennis Association in Antwerp.
Path to Professional Tennis
Clijsters had early success at both the national and international levels as a junior. In 1993, at the age of ten, she won the 12-and-under division of the Belgian Junior Championships in doubles with her future longtime rival Justine Henin. A year later, she won the 12-and-under singles event at the same tournament. In 1996, Clijsters and Henin won the doubles at the 14-and-under European Junior Championships and the 14-and-under European Junior Team Championships for Belgium.
Her first major international junior title came at Les Petits As, a high-level 14-and-under tournament, where she defeated future top-25 players Iveta Benešová and Elena Bovina. Clijsters played two full seasons on the ITF Junior Circuit, finishing 1998 at career-high rankings of world No. 11 in singles and world No. 4 in doubles. She won two junior Grand Slam doubles titles that year, the French Open with Jelena Dokic and the US Open with Eva Dyrberg. In singles, she reached the Wimbledon girls’ final, finishing runner-up to Katarina Srebotnik.
Clijsters turned professional on 17 August 1997. As a fourteen-year-old, she could only enter professional tournaments through qualifying because the WTA Tour did not allow players her age to receive main draw wild cards. She qualified for her first main draw at her second career tournament in Koksijde, Belgium, advancing to the quarterfinals. Within the next year, she won her first career professional titles in Brussels in July 1998, capturing both the singles and doubles events.
Kim Clijsters Career
Early Career (1997-1999)
Clijsters began 1999 with a WTA singles ranking of No. 420. She made her WTA main-draw debut at the Flanders Women’s Open in Antwerp in May, entering as a lucky loser and reaching the quarterfinals, where she lost to top seed Sarah Pitkowski despite holding match points. One week after she turned sixteen, she entered Wimbledon as the youngest player in the top 200, advancing to the round of sixteen in her Grand Slam debut. She defeated world No. 10 Amanda Coetzer in the third round before losing to her childhood idol Steffi Graf one round later.
At the US Open, she lost to eventual champion Serena Williams in the third round after squandering a chance to serve for the match. Clijsters won her first career WTA title at the Luxembourg Open, defeating compatriot Dominique Van Roost in the final and conceding only four games. She finished the season ranked No. 47 in the world and was named WTA Newcomer of the Year.
WTA Tour Breakthrough (2000-2003)
Clijsters steadily climbed the rankings, reaching No. 18 in 2000. In 2001, she reached her first Grand Slam singles final at the French Open, where she played an 18th birthday match against Jennifer Capriati. Clijsters won the first set but lost 12-10 in the third set in a match ranked as the greatest French Open women’s final in Open Era history by Tennis.com. She also helped Belgium win its first Fed Cup crown in 2001, defeating Elena Dementieva in the final.
The 2003 season was Clijsters’s annus mirabilis. She competed in 21 singles events, reaching 15 finals and winning nine titles, compiling a 90-12 record. She became the first Belgian to reach the world No. 1 ranking in both singles and doubles, achieving both feats in August. Clijsters also partnered with Ai Sugiyama to win two Grand Slam doubles titles, the French Open and Wimbledon. She finished the year as the tour prize money leader, becoming the first player to earn four million dollars in a season on the WTA Tour.
Grand Slam Singles Titles (2004-2007)
Plagued by injuries in 2004, Clijsters underwent surgery to remove a cyst in her wrist. After her recovery, she won the Indian Wells Open and the Miami Open in 2005, becoming the second woman to complete the Sunshine Double. Her biggest triumph of the year came at the US Open, where she won her first Grand Slam singles title. As the fourth seed, she defeated Venus Williams in the quarterfinals, Maria Sharapova in the semifinals, and Mary Pierce in the final. Her $2.2 million prize was the largest in women’s sports history at the time. She was named both WTA Player of the Year and WTA Comeback Player of the Year.
In 2006, Clijsters reached the semifinals at three Grand Slam singles events but struggled with injuries throughout the season. In 2007, intending to retire at year’s end, she won the Sydney International as her only title of the year. After withdrawing from several tournaments due to a hip injury, Clijsters announced her retirement in May 2007 at the age of 23.
Comeback Era (2009-2012)
Clijsters announced her return to the WTA Tour in 2009, two years after her first retirement. Receiving wild cards to begin her comeback, she stunned the tennis world by winning the US Open as an unranked player in just her third tournament back, defeating both Williams sisters en route to the title. She became the first mother to win a Grand Slam singles title since Evonne Goolagong Cawley in 1980 and the first unseeded woman to win the US Open.
She defended her US Open title in 2010 and added the Australian Open title in 2011, becoming the first mother to be ranked world No. 1. Along with Margaret Court, she co-holds the record for most major singles titles won as a mother, with three. Clijsters retired again following the 2012 US Open, where she lost to Laura Robson in the second round.
Final Comeback (2020-2022)
After more than seven years of retirement, Clijsters returned to professional tennis in February 2020 at the Dubai Tennis Championships. Working with coach Fred Hemmes Jr., she played a limited schedule hampered by injuries and the COVID-19 pandemic. She underwent knee surgery in October 2020 and was unable to find consistent form. On 12 April 2022, Clijsters announced that she was ending her comeback and retiring from tennis for the third time, citing a desire to focus on family life.
Playing Style and Strengths
Clijsters is regarded as an all-court player who employed a mixture of offensive and defensive styles. Her exceptional movement allowed her to retrieve difficult shots, while her signature squash shot, a stretched-out wide forehand often finished in a split, became a trademark of her defensive game. She built the offensive side of her game around controlled aggression, using her solid groundstroke technique to hit winners from the baseline. She is also considered one of the best returners of serve in the history of the women’s game.
Notable Events and Milestones
Clijsters holds the record for the most Karen Krantzcke Sportsmanship Awards, winning the honor eight times. She was the first mother to be ranked No. 1 in the world since the start of WTA rankings in 1975. In 2010, she participated in an exhibition match at King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels that set a world record for tennis match attendance at 35,681 spectators, surpassing the mark set by the 1973 Battle of the Sexes. Clijsters was featured on the Time 100 list in 2011.
Kim Clijsters Career Wins
Kim Clijsters won 41 singles titles and 11 doubles titles on the WTA Tour, establishing herself as one of the leading forces in women’s tennis. Her four Grand Slam singles titles came at the US Open in 2005, 2009, and 2010, and the Australian Open in 2011. She also won two Grand Slam doubles titles at the 2003 French Open and 2003 Wimbledon, both partnering Ai Sugiyama.
Grand Slam Highlights
Clijsters won her first Grand Slam singles title at the 2005 US Open, defeating Mary Pierce in the final. She added two more consecutive US Open titles in 2009 and 2010, becoming the first mother to win a major since 1980. Her fourth and final Grand Slam singles title came at the 2011 Australian Open, where she defeated Li Na in the final. She also reached the French Open final in 2001 and 2003, the Wimbledon semifinals in 2003 and 2006, and the Australian Open semifinals in 2004.
Tour Finals and Fed Cup
Clijsters won three WTA Tour Championships titles in 2002, 2003, and 2010, a total tied for the fifth-most in history. She also helped Belgium win its first Fed Cup crown in 2001, defeating Russia in the final alongside Justine Henin. Clijsters compiled a 24-4 record in Fed Cup competition, split across 21-3 in singles and 3-1 in doubles.
Kim Clijsters Family
Family Background and Racing Lineage
Clijsters was raised in an athletic family that shaped her career. Her father Lei was a professional soccer defender and Belgium international, while her mother Els was a Belgian national artistic gymnastics champion. Her younger sister Elke was also a promising tennis player, winning two junior Grand Slam doubles titles and achieving a top 400 WTA ranking in singles. Elke retired in 2004 at age 19 due to persistent back problems.
Personal Life
Clijsters is married to Brian Lynch, an American basketball coach and former player. The two met while Lynch was a member of Euphony Bree, and they became a couple in 2005 before marrying in 2007. They have three children: a daughter Jada, born in 2008, and two sons Jack and Blake, born in 2013 and 2016 respectively. The family splits their time between Bree, Belgium, and New Jersey. Earlier in her career, Clijsters was in a long-term relationship with Australian tennis player Lleyton Hewitt, who she met at the 2000 Australian Open.
2025 Season Performance
Kim Clijsters did not compete on the professional tennis tour in 2025. Having retired from professional tennis for the third time in April 2022, she remained retired throughout the 2025 season. Her focus continued to be on her family and her involvement in various tennis-related activities and charitable work.
Clijsters maintained her connection to the sport through her role as tournament director of the Diamond Games in Antwerp, which was revived as a WTA event in 2015. She also continued to serve as an ambassador for SOS Children’s Villages, a role she has held since 2010, and to support Ten4Kim, her nonprofit that funds junior tennis players who cannot afford the costs of high-level training.
Outside of tennis, Clijsters remained active in Belgium and the United States, splitting her time between Bree and New Jersey with her husband and three children. Her legacy as one of the greatest mothers in tennis history and as a player who brought Belgium to the forefront of the women’s game continued to be celebrated by fans and former competitors.
