Former women’s world number one Kim Clijsters has retired from competitive tennis for the third time in her career, she announced yesterday.
The Belgian, a four-time Grand Slam champion, returned to the WTA Tour in February 2020, but her comeback coincided largely with the Covid pandemic and she played just five matches.
“I want to share with you that I have decided to no longer play official tournaments,” Clijsters wrote on Instagram. “I can’t wait to see what new adventures will cross my path. Thank you to everyone who has supported me over the past two years!”
The 38-year-old, who won the 2005 US Open, originally retired in 2007 to start a family, before returning to the tour two years later. Clijsters went on to win another three Grand Slam titles — consecutive US Opens in 2009 and 2010 and the 2011 Australian Open — before hanging up her racket again in 2012.
She struggled on her second return, though, failing to notch a match win. But Clijsters, who was world number one on four different occasions, said she has no regrets.
“I think my determination was something as a little girl that was a huge factor,” Clijsters told the WTA website.
“This is something that came from my parents — they always pushed me in believing, ‘OK, what you do for your sport, you have to do it 100 percent’... And out of everything, that’s probably what I’m most proud of — that I really did that.”  Her final WTA match was a three-set loss to Katerina Siniakova at Indian Wells last October.  Clijsters won 41 WTA singles titles, including the season-ending Tour Finals in 2002, 2003 and 2010.

Injured Nadal to miss Barcelona event
Rafael Nadal has not yet been able to resume training with a racket, said one of his team said yesterday, adding that the world No  4 will “logically” miss the Barcelona tournament next week.
“He is still suffering from his ribs and as expected when his injury was announced, he needs four to six weeks. We are at three, so logically he will not be able to play again in Barcelona,” a person close to Nadal said. “He does the gym, but nothing that hurts him and therefore obviously not with the racket.”
After Nadal went down to his first loss of the year to Taylor Fritz in the Indian Wells final, the 35-year-old Spaniard said he had suffered a stress fracture of a rib in the semi-final against 18-year-old compatriot Carlos Alcaraz.
He has already missed the Miami Masters on hard court and Monte Carlo, which opens the European clay court season. The next Masters events are Madrid starting on May 1 and then Rome beginning on May 8. The French Open begins on May 22. Nadal has won the title at Roland Garros 13 times.