Clijsters prefers better mind to tennis grind
By Bonnie DeSimone
Special to ESPN.com
KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. -- Great athletes don't know when to quit. That is their
rep, and they have demonstrated over and over that they largely deserve it.
So it's no surprise that much has been made of Kim Clijsters' declared
intention to retire after next season, when she will be 24.
No matter what, whether or not she goes out atop the rankings, whether or not
she ever adds another Grand Slam to her breakthrough 2005 U.S. Open win. The
Belgian star has been quietly adamant about her timetable every time she's been
asked, most recently Thursday in a conversation with reporters before the
Nasdaq-100 tournament, where she was seeded second.
"There are so many precautions I have to take now, with my back, my wrist, my
knee. I'm sick of it," Clijsters said Saturday, calmly but crisply enough that
you flashed on the hours of rehab and the yards of athletic tape.
"I've played tennis since I was 6. There are so many other things I would like
to do, as well," Clijsters said. "While I was injured, I learned a lot about
food, about health, about healing. I read a lot of books. Maybe I'll do
something with kids here in America.
"We'll see what happens with Brian [Lynch, her boyfriend, a former Villanova
basketball player now playing professionally in Belgium]. I'd love to have a
family ... I have a young mom. I would like to be a young mom, too."
Because Clijsters seems so refreshingly dedicated to a balanced life, it's
hard not to root for her to play well enough from now until then to neutralize
any possible regrets. That's not the way this season has begun for Clijsters,
although she has beaten a couple of top-20 players and spent some time at
No. 1 thanks to the rolling ranking system.
She was eliminated in her opening match here Saturday afternoon, 7-5, 3-6, 7-5
by 31-year-old journeywoman Jill Craybas. The upset put Clijsters on the
sideline along with another top seed, fourth-ranked Belgian rival Justine
Henin-Hardenne, who lost Friday to Meghann Shaughnessy.
Craybas, the Rhode Island native and University of Florida grad who shocked
Serena Williams at Wimbledon last year, had never played Clijsters before.
"I didn't know what to expect," said Craybas, currently ranked 54th on the
women's tour, a one-time winner on tour compared to Clijsters' 30 titles.
"I told myself before the match, 'Just have fun, enjoy the moment.' "
That's what Clijsters is trying to do, too, but she can count. Bowing out of
this tournament early means she has just one more crack at Miami. It will be
like that for her at all the bus stops in tennis' world capitals from now on.
"For the amount of time that I'm going to be still playing, I wish I could
play the best tennis that I have left," she said. "That's the motivation, to
try to get myself back to where I was when I was playing before the U.S. Open."
She's realistic enough not to expect the next 18 months to be one big victory
lap. "If everything would be going like it did then ... that wouldn't be fun
after a while either," Clijsters said. "You need your goals and your motivations
a little bit. Maybe in a way this will set me back on track."
Hip, wrist and ankle injuries -- most dramatically, the ankle sprain that
forced her to concede the Australian Open semifinal to eventual winner Amelie
Mauresmo -- have curtailed Clijsters' playing time this season. She is now 9-3
in four events and skipped Indian Wells earlier this month to recuperate.
Clijsters said she was physically sound coming into the Nasdaq-100, but
admitted that her practice-to-playing-time ratio has gotten out of whack.
"You need your matches," she said. "That's what I'm definitely lacking out
there a little bit.
"I feel like important points, I'm taking risks but I'm missing them. When
I'm playing my best tennis, I go for my shots and I made them. That's the
difference."
Clijsters has taken an unusually big risk by making such a public promise to
bow out in her mid-20s, foreshortening the arc of her career and leaving the
usual chapters about slumps, streaks and valiant late-in-life comebacks
unwritten. How much control she'll have over her own plotline remains to be
seen.
Freelance writer Bonnie DeSimone is a frequent contributor to ESPN.com
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為什麼他要再次強調呢
我以為他打消念頭了
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