Clijsters wins 3rd U.S. Open title
KIM CLIJSTERS won a second consecutive U.S. Open championship and third overall by easily beating Vera Zvonareva 6-2, 6-1 Saturday in a match that lasted 59 minutes and lacked any drama.
| Kim Clijsters of Belgium holds her daughter Jada as she poses with her trophy after defeating Vera Zvonareva of Russia during the U.S. Open in New York on Saturday.SD-Agencies |
“It’s always an honor to go back to a place, especially a Grand Slam, where you’ve done well and you’ve won, and you want to bring your best tennis again,” Clijsters said. “I know if I bring my best, I’m capable of beating the best players.”
That she did, including Venus Williams in the semifinals, although Zvonareva — also the runner-up at Wimbledon in July — hardly presented much of a challenge.
Not since 1995 has a U.S. Open women’s final lasted three sets, and this one wasn’t about to end that trend. And not since 1976 was there a women’s final where the loser won only three games.
Put simply, the second-seeded Clijsters was too dominant; the seventh-seeded Zvonareva too shaky.
“She didn’t really give me chances to get into the match,” Zvonareva said. “But I also think that physically today she was just much better.”
Clijsters is the first woman since Williams in 2000-01 to win the title in Flushing Meadows two years in a row. And Clijsters’ U.S. Open winning streak is actually up to 21 matches because she also won the 2005 title. She missed the tournament in 2006 because of injuries, including wrist surgery, and skipped it the next two years while taking time off to get married and have a baby.
Her 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Jada, spent the evening in the stands at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Last year in New York, when Jada pranced around the court during the postmatch ceremony, Clijsters became the first mother since Evonne Goolagong Cawley in 1980 to take home a Grand Slam trophy.
This time, in addition to another championship, Clijsters was awarded US$2.2 million — the winner’s check of US$1.7 million, plus another US$500,000 for finishing second in the U.S. Open Series standings that take into account hard-court tuneup tournaments.
Clijsters broke twice to take the first set, and often let Zvonareva cause her own problems. Clijsters needed only four winners in that set, because Zvonareva made 13 unforced errors, including dumping a backhand into the net on the last point.
After that mistake, Zvonareva told a ball person to get out of the way, so she could take a practice swing on her backhand side.
When Zvonareva failed to get to a backhand and fell behind 40-love in the opening game of the second set, she cracked her racket against the court twice, breaking it, and earning a warning from the chair umpire.
“I was trying to find a way to pump myself up, to change something up,” Zvonareva explained later.
On the men’s side, Novak Djokovic tore up the script, defeating Roger Federer in a pulsating semifinal to torpedo hopes for a dream final between the Swiss star and Rafael Nadal.
(SD-Agencies)
Source： Shenzhen Daily Editor： 洪志科