Australian Open Final: Where Does Kim Clijsters' Victory Rank in Last Decade?
Kim Clijsters won the 2011 women's Australian Open title on Saturday with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory over Li Na. There really have been some truly memorable women’s finals at the Australian Open, and this can be added to the list.
How about Margaret Court rallying to beat fellow Australian Evonne Goolagong Cawley for her third consecutive crown in 1971, or Martina Navratilova winning what I consider one of the best Grand Slam finals of all time against Chris Evert in ’81?
Monica Seles defeating Steffi Graf in 1993's thriller is right up there and Seles' emotional return to Melbourne three years later has to be considered special in its own right.
Throughout the years, the fans have really been blessed Down Under.
But how does Clijsters' victory over Li stack up to the nine other finals from the past decade?
Was it more of a spectacle than when Serena won her second Happy Slam in '05 or when Maria Sharapova won it in 2008?
Read on to find out. You can also click here for my analysis of some of the ways Clijsters got things done.
2006: Mauresmo's Tears Of Joy, Henin's Tears Of Pain
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Third seed Amélie Mauresmo won her first major championship at the AO in 2006, but the final itself has to be ranked so low because of the fact that Justine Henin had to retire in a set and 2-0 down.
Henin was suffering from stomach cramps resulting from the accidental misuse of anti-inflammatories for a chronic shoulder injury, and I’m sure having to play back-to-back three-setters against Lindsay Davenport and Maria Sharapova in the quarters and semis had not helped.
Mauresmo’s high-bouncing heavy topspin groundstrokes had her in complete control of the final, but you couldn’t help feel sorry for Henin who sat on her chair crying into her towel after an agonizing backhand into the net proved the final nail in the coffin.
It was the second retirement win in a row for Mauresmo, who beat Kim Clijsters in the semifinal following a torn tendon in her ankle.
2009: Serena Williams Blasts Past Hapless Dinara Safina
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A shoulder injury meant defending champion Maria Sharapova was not in Melbourne to defend her crown, but that didn’t seem to bother Serena Williams, who romped to an easy victory over third seed Dinara Safina 6-0, 6-3.
Williams dropped just one set in the entire tournament, and she dispatched players seeded 13, eight, four and three en route to her fourth AO title in seven seasons, continuing her run of success in the even-numbered years.
This was Williams’ 33rd career title and 10th Grand Slam trophy and it was pretty much a non-event.
It lasted less than an hour and Daily Telegraph reporter Mark Hodgkinson summed it up nicely when he said: “Safina's significant contribution to the match consisted of one air-shot and three games; she didn't even bounce her racket in annoyance on the court with anything like her usual style or gusto.
“The final had all the drama and excitement of the pre-match warm-up, and the night will largely be remembered for these fabulously disingenuous comments from the champion's on-court speech: "Dinara was hitting the ball so hard that I had to go for broke, that was all I could do to stay in there. Dinara, thank you so much for putting on such a great show for women's tennis."
2007: Injury? What Injury?
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Anybody who disregarded Serena Williams as a legitimate threat in 2007 was left to eat their words after the unseeded Williams crushed glamour girl Maria Sharapova to win her eighth, and most improbable, Grand Slam.
Williams, ranked 81st, became the third-lowest-ranked major titlist since 1975, after Evonne Goolagong and Chris O'Neil who won in Melbourne in 1977 and 1978, respectively.
Williams overpowered Sharapova with ease, with the Russian only managing to hold service once in the 26-minute first set.
The second set was equally as one-sided and there were no signs of the knee injury that had sidelined her for most of the previous year when she ripped a backhand winner to seal the deal.
The victory was the most dominating win in a completed championship match at Melbourne Park since Steffi Graf beat Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, 6-0, 6-2, in 1994.
It was also Sharapova’s worst Grand Slam defeat, despite coming into the final in great shape having not dropped a set.
Williams’ critics said she wasn’t fit enough to win this title again, but she proved them wrong once more.
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2005: Serena Keeps Rolling Down Under
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The ’05 final marked the fourth consecutive year that the women treated fans to a winner-takes-all third set.
Serena Williams looked like being blown away against fellow American Lindsay Davenport, but despite dropping the opening set 2-6, Williams rallied to knot the match 1-1.
If there was any sense of drama, though, that quickly evaporated as Williams bageled Davenport 6-0 in the third set to win her second Slam in Melbourne.
The victory gave Williams her 14th straight win at the tournament, but the final half hour of this match was pretty weak and one-sided.
Out of gas after playing in the women’s doubles, a disinterested Davenport mailed in the last nine games, seemingly spent after missing six break point chances at 2-2 in the second set.
2008: From Russia With Love
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Maria Sharapova became the first Russian to win the Australian Open when she defeated Ana Ivanović 7-5, 6-3.
The faster Plexicushion courts replaced the thicker, hotter Rebound Ace courts, but Sharapova didn’t seem bothered as she won her third Slam at a third different Major without ever dropping a set.
The final was actually pretty good, and things could have been so different had Ivanovic took her chances leading 5-4 and 0-30 on the Sharapova serve in the opening set.
The Serb pushed the 20-year-old more than anyone else had managed to, but when Sharapova clinched the third match points and dropped to her knees in tears, the result was nothing really unexpected.
2004: Henin Survives All-Belgian Duel
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In the first and only all-Belgian final, Justine Henin held off a spirited charge from Kim Clijsters to claim her third Grand Slam championship.
The world No. 1 was relentless and ruthless with her one-handed backhand, breaking Clijsters’ heart for the third straight time in a Major final after also beating her at Roland Garros and the US Open in ’03.
A nervous-looking Henin took a 4-1 advantage in the deciding set before Clijsters, who injured her left ankle at the Hopman Cup a week before the tournament began, broke back.
She had a chance to level the set at 4-4, but squandered two game points with double-faults before losing the game.
Henin closed it out with an ace the following game, before spinning her racket into the air and slumping to her knees with her hands over her face in one of the better finals of the last decade.
2010: Aussie Kim Reigns Supreme
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Kim Clijsters was excellent in the second and third set, responding well and staking her claim as the best in the world right now.
She changed her game to outplay Li, succeeding on the big points and using all of her experience to claim her fourth ever Major.
Clijsters tried to match Li’s power in the opening set, but Li thrived on the pace and really looked pretty good.
Clijsters started mixing it up in the second set, tossing in junk shots, slicing her backhand deep and looping returns back up the center of the court, causing Li to create angles, power or both.
Clijsters rallied from 2-3 down in the second set, winning four games in a row to take the set as well as two more to jump out to a 2-0 lead in the third.
Clijsters tossed in two double faults to hand Li a break, but as the set went into the middle stages, Li started to make more mistakes as she went for bigger, more ambitious shots with increasing regularity.
Clijsters looked the fitter of the two women and Li seemed to have little response to match the Belgian’s energy or break down her solid defense.
Li found issue with everything from her own fans’ shouts to flash photography, but after a promising start, Clijsters was the worthy winner as she adapted much more efficiently as the match got into the middle set.
A few ticks after the two-hour mark, Clijsters served for the tournament. Taking the first two points with strong forehand winners, Clijsters held to love, taking the title on a missed Li backhand down the line.
Clijsters smiled from ear to ear with her hands locked behind her head as she sat back in her chair waiting for the on-court presentation, tears rolling down her cheeks as she could hardly believe that she had just won her fourth Grand Slam.
Clijsters was the better woman today, and her victory only solidifies her mutual love affair with Australia even more. This was one of the better finals in recent years.
2003: Serena Slam? Sister Slam? A Grand Achievement
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Venus and Serena Williams, both finalists at the 2003 Australian Open for the first time, met in a thrilling three-set conclusion to the ladies’ championship, with younger sister Serena winning 7-6(4), 3-6, 6-4.
Serena became only the fifth woman to hold all four Grand Slam titles at once, christening it the "Serena Slam,” as she joined the elite company of Maureen Connolly, Margaret Court, Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf.
With two big hitters who know the other’s game so well–and temperatures hitting 108–it maybe wasn’t too surprising to see 105 errors and 65 winners in a match that lasted nearly two-and-a-half hours.
Error-laden it may be, but no other woman in the world could match the speed and power that either sister possessed, so to see them go head-to-head in the final was quite something.
2010: Henin's Near-Perfect Comeback
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Serena Williams won her record fifth Australian Open title in the Open Era with a hard-fought 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 victory over Justine Henin.
Wildcard Henin, playing in her first Major after since her retirement in 2008, pushed the world No. 1 all the way while giving fans their first three-set women’s final in five years.
Down a set to the top seed, Henin got back into the match by breaking to love in the third game and then again at 3-3 by painting the lines and forcing Williams into mistakes.
Henin’s serve left her as she tired in the third set, and Williams served it out at 5-2 with a cross court backhand winner.
The title was Williams' 12th Grand Slam victory, which tied her for sixth all-time with Billie Jean King and Suzanne Lenglen.
2002: Frustrated Jennifer Capriati Makes Martina Hingis Wilt In The Heat
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In the first three-set final in almost a decade, Jennifer Capriati defeated Martina Hingis for the second successive year to retain the silverware.
Hingis, making her sixth AO final in a row, had lost 6-4, 6-3 to the American 12 months earlier, but she put up a much more spirited fight this time around.
She controlled the tempo of the game from the baseline and took the opening set 6-4 and it looked as though she could win her fourth title in Melbourne, but Capriati edged a narrow second-set tiebreak 9-7 before running out a 6-2 victory in the third.
Extreme heat, which actually caused the 2003 finals to be played under cover, caused both players problems, but Capriati outlasted the exhausted and dispirited Hingis, who just couldn’t keep up.
Hingis had her chance, going 4-0 up in the second set as Capriati took out her frustration on the fans and the umpire. Hingis turned passive and, as AJ Porter pointed out last year, refused to take a short ball out of the air on two of her four match points.
While the third set seemed more of a formality, this has to go down of one of the very best women’s finals of all time.
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