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PARIS — The tale of two champions on a blustery Thursday in Paris began
inside Stade Suzanne Lenglen, where Kim Clijsters was rolling to victory
against an untested 20-year-old named Arantxa Rus, not at her best but
playing well enough — then refused to win.
Clijsters’s 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 loss to Rus, and Sharapova’s 3-6, 6-4, 6-0
victory over Garcia were so very much a microcosm of their respective
careers.
The 27-year-old Clijsters, champion at the last two majors, had been a
question mark coming into this French Open because of an ankle injury. It's
a tournament she's never won. Her clay-court craft is debatable, her
confidence on the surface fragile. And between her sabbatical and an injury a
year ago, Clijsters hadn't even been to Paris since 2006.
Despite that, she was considered a favourite for the title. But the Clijsters
who showed up on a day when conditions suddenly morphed from hot and sunny to
cool and blustery was a mirror image of her younger self. Always prone to
lapses in concentration, although much improved in that department since her
return to the game, the Belgian did what she has so often done in defeat.
Instead of taking her time, adjusting the game plan, and making a lesser and
undoubtedly nervous opponent earn the victory, she put her tennis on fast
forward and went down in a hailstorm of unforced errors — 65 in all, 10 of
them double faults.
“I guess I'm still trying to figure that out. You know, I felt kind of in
control. Then, you know, I started doubting a little bit. I think, on clay
that is something that for me is definitely the wrong attitude to have,”
Clijsters said.
Clijsters said her ankle felt fine.
“It's better to try than not to try. I'm not gonna sit here and say:‘Oh,
you know, maybe I shouldn't have come here.’ That's kind of the attitude
of, you know, a real loser, I think,” she said. “I gave it the best that I
had and with my abilities that I had.”