KEY BISCAYNE — Kim Clijsters' right shoulder is acting up. Her wrist is a pain, too.
But don't expect her to assign a traditional label, such as tendinitis, to her condition.
"Almost 30 years old," was her official self-diagnosis.
Some players reach this stage and are thirtysomethings. Others are something when they're 30.
Clijsters, for the record, is a mere 27 and won't hit 30 until June 2013, but even that is relative, since she took time off from the tour to give birth to daughter Jada in February 2008 before coming back stronger than ever.
She enters the Sony Ericsson Open as the defending champion and the second-ranked player in the world, bum shoulder or not.
Yes, she had to pull out of last week's event in Indian Wells, Calif., but she and her doctor are confident the problem can be controlled.
"I wouldn't risk it if I knew I had a serious injury," she said Tuesday.
Clijsters never was one to make an important move without reflection. The Fed Cup, French Open and Wimbledon are on the immediate horizon, she said.
Beyond that, the London 2012 Olympics.
"That will probably be the last big event that I will be a part of," she said.
Don't put it past her to drop the curtain on a career at its apex. Tennis is a big part of her life, but not the only part.
She grew up in Belgium with 14 cousins on one side of the family. Both she and her husband want to "keep that tradition going" with a big family of their own, which would count a lot more than her four Grand Slam titles, including this year's Australian Open.
"I think the perspective is something that I've always had," she said. "It's probably more even now, but growing up, there's things that happen in life that make you realize, 'OK, tennis: It's a sport and it's something that to me started as a hobby and a lot of times still is.' So I think it would be a little bit embarrassing in a way to compare a loss to it being the end of the world. I think with everything that's going on now in the East, in Japan, it would be crazy to compare sports to that level."
More to life than just sports _ it's a philosophy she'll instill in Jada, just as it was instilled in her by her late father, Leo, who was Belgium's soccer player of the year in 1988. Young Kim knew what was coming the moment she returned from tournaments.
"OK, put your rackets in the garage," she said, repeating Dad's instructions. "Don't touch them for a week. Go have fun."
Her message for tennis parents living vicariously: "A lot of parents look at their child as a business. And I think that's the wrong thing."
Time off the court never did seem to set Kim back. In March 2007, she put having a child first and left the tour. Three tournaments into her comeback, she was hoisting the trophy at the 2009 U.S. Open. She became the first mother to be ranked No. 1.
Today, she's one of the veterans. The view around her is an odd one, lacking peers from her generation such as Justine Henin, who recently retired, and Venus and Serena Williams, who will miss the Sony because of health problems. It was only a year ago that Clijsters was defeating Venus for the championship on Key Biscayne.
Venus has an abdominal injury. Serena needed emergency treatment for blood clots, which shook the locker room.
"Players get injured and you don't see them for a couple of months and you think, 'OK, I'll see them again,'" Clijsters said. "Then something like that is life-threatening and something that again puts everything in perspective. I do think, especially here _ everywhere _ every tournament is just a bigger tournament when they're a part of it.
"When I think back on my career, playing Serena and Venus in some of the biggest matches I have played have been the most fun matches. I've lost some but I've also won a couple and I think for the amount of time that I'm still playing, I hope that I get a few more of those."
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