Kim Clijsters: Is She in the Mold of Serena Williams?

There used to be a time when Kim Clijsters was a disappointment to the tennis world.

She was a consistent performer, but almost as much a consistent finalist failure. Her first four grand slam finals, from 2001 to 2004, were losses; while they were shortcomings to the very best, defeats are defeats enough.

Andy Murray, of course, is on track to emulate the Belgian, having lost his first three, but if there should be one thing for him to look forward to, should he indeed repeat on the men's tour Kim's feat, is that she has, since losing her first four finals, won her last four finals.

There is a sense of justice about tennis after all, for all its cruelty.

Most recently, of course, Clijsters won the Australian Open, winning her first final at that particular tournament in seven years.

Of course, it is probably unrealistic and unfair to judge her career in light of her earlier disappointments; so much has her second career, dramatically sparked off by her US Open win in 2009, been a career of its own that it would be an injustice to mar it by her youthful misadventures.

This second career has matured nicely—it was a shock and almost disorientating novelty in 2009—that a comeback could succeed so soon. Almost never had anyone come back from a hiatus of over two years to win her first tournament, and a grand slam at that.

It said two things: something about the WTA tour and something about Kim. Those of an optimistic slant, of course, would have preferred reading about Kim.

We are seeing, it may be said, the Serena Williams of Kim Clijsters.

Serena, of course, is in a class of her own among current players, as devastating as the recent updates on her health have been. Kim, however, has demonstrated mettle in the last year and a half that can only be considered in the light of Serena's domination of 2009-10.

These are two late career surges—who forgets, after all, that Kim and Serena are almost old school friends, in tennis terms.

The American just chose to play on, while the Belgian called it quits halfway on.

There is something about maturity, I think, which we see here; early career failures, with expectations boiling beyond manageable limits, often soften, both in their magnitude and intensity, as one ages.

So, we see this in Clijsters. Serena has probably held the line so well her whole career, we never got to see her deal with traumatizing failure. With Kim, however, the narrative has been of failure and now, increasingly, of triumph.

There is no doubt about it: Her win in Melbourne this year may have ignited a minor changing in the guard, from one veteran to another.

With Serena out of action indefinitely, Kim certainly made the right moves in fortuitous places. Already she has held the No. 1 spot this year and she is likely to regain it later this season, should any successes come her way.

Moreover, there is an additional unseen aspect to Kim's success in recent years, which might do well to draw form her own experience in understanding.

Things seem to work in cycles in tennis, and it is quite the way so far, it seems, for Kim's new challengers—Caroline Wozniacki or Vera Zvonereva, for instance. They too, have been suffering from bouts of the Kim syndrome, failing to perform to their expectations, while gunning for the top spot, fighting unnumbered mental demons.

It is the pain, but joy at the same time, of youth.

Kim is no longer quite as youthful as she once was, but on the tennis court these days, she is surely quite joyous, and certainly without pain.