Trophy Wife – Motherhood sparks return to top for Clijsters
Well, what an excellent performance from Kim Clijsters to win the US Open, beating the up and coming Dane, and fans favourite, Caroline Wozniacki. After the semi-final furore (slash debacle) involving Serena Williams and one petrified line judge, Clijsters did well to move on quickly, put that incident behind her and promptly became the first mother since Evonne Goolagong Cawley, in 1980, to win a Grand Slam title.
Clijsters retired in May 2007, citing injuries, and moved onto personal priorities very quickly – since then she has got married and had a baby. Â Her ability to juggle motherhood and a professional tennis career were evident as 18 month old daughter Jada was allowed to stay up late and join her mum on court for the Grand Slam celebrations.
The win has come as somewhat of an unexpected revelation, merely three tournaments into her return. However we must not forget that Clijsters has been a high calibre player for a number of years on the women’s circuit – back in 2003 she was world #1- a time when that ranking actually held some credibility!
But such a stunning victory for the wildcard entry does prompt the question could child bearing have positive effects on performance? Scientific studies have suggested that the physical benefits of increased red blood cells and hormone levels coupled with the sharpened mental agility may be the reason for sporting success. These sorts of studies seem to back up many of the unfounded allegations directed at Eastern European governing bodies and athletes involving ‘abortion doping’ with their young female athletes, whereby getting pregnant and aborting improved their performance. The subject has long been queried by anti-doping bodies as a legal way to increase performance enhancing hormones.
This is not to say that every pregnant woman should be expecting to turn into ‘Super Mum’, childbirth effects are varied and it helps to be sporty and active before as well! But with other recent winners including Paula Radcliffe, winning the New York Marathon after becoming a mum in 2007, as well as Catriona Matthew winning the British Golf Open earlier this year, only 10 weeks after giving birth, there does seem to be a trend.
Super Mum theories aside Clijsters win may portray a more worrying picture for Women’s tennis as a whole. Whilst it might be difficult to remember a time before the dominance of the Williams sisters, this victory shows that there is still a place for tactics and subtlety over the raw power we see so often from both Venus and Serena. Clijsters beat both the sisters on her way to the title and unfortunately shows that whilst the big stars of Women’s tennis, like Sharapova fight for form, and seemingly amateur displays from world No.1 Dinara Safina keep occurring, the Women’s game may have actually fallen behind since Clijsters retired allowing her to return to be ranked 19th in the World after only three tournaments
Having a break from the game and assessing her priorities has clearly helped to rekindle the passion and form for the game. Also having a relationship with someone outside of tennis (rather than her previous relationship with Aussie Lleyton Hewitt) shows that having a healthy life balance can aid sports performance. Kim has also shown us all that it is never too late to come back to a sport and achieve success through renewed enjoyment
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Until next time – get into sport, get intosport.com! Especially you potential supermum’s out there!!
Clijsters was brilliant. So good to see her back to her best. Semi-final was a farce but good on Serena for apologising; she does normally have a pretty good temperament.
your websits is fantastic by the way – I’ve been using it to help my two teenage sons improve their tennis. They keep wondering how I know so much about it