Kim Clijsters showed the tennis world that she is very much Queen of New York by comfortably taking a third US Open title with a 6-2, 6-1 demolition of seventh seed Vera Zvonareva.
In exactly an hour it was the most one sided final since Chris Evert defeated Evonne Goolagong 6-3, 6-0 in 1976.
Appearing in her 56th career singles final Clijsters victory gave her a 39th singles title and was the fifth from as many finals since her comeback little over a year ago. Amongst active players she only trails Venus Williams and Justine Henin who both have 43 titles.
The Belgian had lost her first four major finals (Roland Garros 2001 and 2003, US Open 2003 and Australian Open 2004) but has now won her last three – all in New York. The 27 year-old joins Maria Sharapova, Lindsay Davenport, Jennifer Capriati and British players Ann Jones and Virginia Wade in an elite group with three Grand Slam singles titles.
Clijsters has reached the final on her last four visits to Flushing Meadows and will now enter the 2011 event on an impressive 21 match winning streak. In the Open Era she only trails Chris Evert who won 31 consecutive matches between 1975 and 1979.
The second seed was in impressive form throughout the two weeks cruising into the quarter- finals with minimal fuss where she overcame a determined performance from fifth seed Sam Stosur 6-3 in the third set.
She faced her biggest challenge in the last four where she came from a set down to narrowly edge out Venus Williams after two hours and 23 minutes. Clijsters has defeated Williams in three sets each time she has won the US Open – quarter final (2005) 4-6, 7-5, 6-1, fourth round (2009) 6-0, 0-6, 6-4, and semi-final (2010) 4-6. 7-6(2), 6-4.
Stat Attack
- Clijsters has now won her last nine matches against Top 10 opponents and has an 11-2 record since returning to the tour in August last year.
- Clijsters has a 35-5 record at the US Open – all five defeats have been to opponents ranked in the top 10.
- With 30 career hard court titles Clijsters is 4th on the all time list behind Steffi Graf (37), Lindsay Davenport (34) and Chris Evert (32).
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