In an inexplicable fashion, Kim Clijsters crashed out of the Australian Open against the Russian Nadia Petrova, winning just one game on the way to a loss ESPN.com’s Ravi Ubha called a “savage beating”.
Day 5 provided the most dramatic day of tennis for this year’s tournament so far, as Andy Roddick fought off a spirited opponent and Justine Henin and Svetlana Kuznetsova mounted furious comebacks to keep their title dreams alive.
Playing sloppy tennis, Clijsters was ushered off the court in 52 brisk minutes in the worst loss of her career. Ben Smith wrote in The Times that Clijsters could do nothing to “stop the rot,” and the Belgian agreed.
“I was just questioning myself, just questioning myself out there a lot,” Clijsters said in her postmatch interview. “You don’t really know, why is this all of a sudden happening? You just try to stay calm because there were points where I really like wanted to break my racket into pieces.”
Her countrywoman Justine Henin held up her end of the Belgian bargain on Friday, storming back from a set and a break down to defeat a gutsy Alisa Kleybanova, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2.
Peter Hanlon of The Age said Henin weathered Kleybanova’s blows well to chalk up her 500th career victory.
Source: nytimes straight sets blog
Wow while Justine fought like a tiger and moved on to the round of 16 poor Kim Clijsters went out with a whimper.
It was heartbreaking to watch.
This is the woman who just last year won the U.S. Open (after being away from the game for almost 3 years) and just a week ago in an epic with Justine Henin won Brisbane International.
She just wasn't there mentally today at all, her serve just went away. I don't know whether she was just distracted with family stuff, or what but it's too bad.
Because she really had a shot at this thing with the way she was playing up to this point.
Hopefully she'll regroup and do better in the next major. Guess I'm rooting for Justine.
Thank goodness Roger Federer is still in this thing
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