By Jean Kirshenbaum
Photo Credit: Tony Chang/Chang Photography
(June 1, 2010) One of the more moving moments of this French Open was Kimiko Date Krumm’s tears-of-joy first-round victory over Dinara Safina—at the age of 39! With all the fuss—well deserved—about the comebacks of Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin, some might say that this other comeback Kim is THE spectacular comeback player on the red clay. It came 15 years after Date Krumm reached the Roland Garros semifinals.
Indeed, her light was very bright when she battled back from 1-4 down in the final set in blinding Dinara Safina into a 3-6, 6-4, 7-5 first-round defeat. Yet, her return to the women’s tour after 12 years of retirement (a return encouraged by her husband, race car driver Michael Krumm) was very much under the radar. On the other hand, if you were puzzled by the mention of her name last fall, this is the reason: She won the Korea Open—just one day before her 39th birthday.
Krumm’s second-round defeat by Jarmila Groth, 6-0, 6-3, however, doesn’t at all take away from her feat at the French Open. Who would have believed that Seoul would be her stepping stone to Paris?
When you turn the spotlight onto the comeback of that other more familiar Kim — Kim
Clijsters — memories can be short. Because there are many people who record all kinds of
statistics regarding players and matches, tennis history is generally accurate—although perhaps not as good as the meticulous but ridiculous record-keeping and trivia in baseball.
Despite the rich data bank of tennis, memories can defy and record keeping can
still fall short of accuracy. Such is the case with last year’s comeback of Kim Clijsters, who returned to the WTA tour in the summer of 2009.
And what comeback it has been! She has won three tournaments: the 2009 US
Open, the Brisbane International in January and the Sony Ericsson Open on Key Biscayne in April, crushing Venus Williams in the final.
Though Clijsters' comeback is well chronicled, no one ever seems to recall her mention of one of the significant reasons that she left the tour at just age 22. What they fail to remember is that when she was 20, she said openly several times that it was her plan to retire at age 22. Why? Because her body was taking a beating and she didn’t want to live through more injuries. She said this long before she explained that she wanted to get married and have a child. So there should have been no surprise here. You just can’t put this kind of information in a data bank. She simply kept her promise to herself.
In the meantime, Kim married former Villanova basketball player Brian Lynch in 2007, and had daughter Jada in February of 2008. And guess what! She is now rehabbing an injury suffered in Fed Cup play in April — a muscle tear on the inside of her left foot. This injury forced her to withdraw from the French Open, where she was a two-time finalist. Because of this injury she also withdrew from the two primary tune-up tournaments for Paris: Rome and Madrid.
The point is this: regardless of her more current injuries, she had planned to retire all along. She cited injuries as the reason — primarily her wrist injury. No one mentions that fact now that she’s back on the women’s tour. Here is how the comeback was reported a few years
ago by Associated Press, which offered this incomplete background information in its
story: "Clijsters, who retired in May 2007, to get married and start a family, announced her
comeback at the tennis facility where she has been practicing. She plans to enter the
U.S. Open, which begins Aug. 31 — her first competition at Flushing Meadows since
winning her only Grand Slam singles championship there in 2005."
This is not exactly so. The AP — and Kim herself — neglected to remind the tennis world
at that time that the reason she gave in 2003 — when she was just 20 — was injuries. In
2006 she announced her engagement to Lynch and they married in 2007. Before Lynch, she
had announced her engagement — in December 2003 — to Australian player Lleyton Hewitt.
But their relationship ended in October 2004. Although at the time of her retirement she said the reason was to start a family, no one in the media mentioned that she had
previously announced that she was planning to retire at age 22, which would have been in 2005! It’s unlikely that either Hewitt or Lynch was in the picture at that point.
BBC Sport was closer to the truth when it reported the story this way: “...But a series of injuries prompted her to retire aged just 23 in May 2007, with a second-round defeat by qualifier Julia Vakulenko at the J&S Cup proving the final straw. She has since married American basketball player Brian Lynch and gave birth to daughter Jada Ellie in February 2008.”
So Clijsters now has the family she wanted, but it’s ironic that she is not now injury free. Again, when she first announced that it was her intention to retire at age 22, her wrist injuries were the problem. Now, will her current foot problem—and her family—start her to thinking once again whether being back on the WTA tour is worth it? No one knows and she probably wouldn’t ever say; and probably she doesn’t know yet herself. This is simply wild speculation. And with so much success—three titles in just six months!—maybe she’ll be able to push all that aside and continue her dedication and commitment for years to come. She’s now 27 years old. There likely aren’t that many years ahead of her before it will be "safe" and acceptable for her to retire yet again without surprise from her fans and the tennis world. Dismay, yes. But shock and astonishment? No. On the other hand, she could choose to retire again before then to have another child and save her body. Who could blame her?
Lindsay Davenport retired in 2006 to have a family, but there was little shock and fanfare in her case. She had married Jonathan Leach in 2003, and in 2007 her son, Jagger, was born. Remarkably, it was just six weeks later that she was back on the tour. Now that’s a comeback! She won several lesser tournaments. Then we didn’t see her for a while, having left the court again when she gave birth to a baby girl, Lauren Andrus, on June 27, 2009. Davenport hasn’t broken ties with tennis, however. She is frequently a commentator—and a good one — on Tennis Channel. You've probably see her work during this French Open.
There have been other notable comebacks:
Jennifer Capriati returned to tennis after taking a break in 1993. Following several years of personal troubles, including shoplifting and drug abuse, she came back in November of 1994, a return to the tour lasted just one match, which she lost. Following that perplexing incident, Capriati went on a 15-month sabbatical and did not play on the tour at all in 1995. It was not until May of 1999, that Capriati would finally win her first tournament in six years. Due to injury she has not played on the tour since 2004, when she played her last match in Philadelphia.
Monica Seles: Who can forget the comeback of Monica Seles? Many think that Seles would
have been THE greatest female player of all time, had she not been stabbed in the back
at a tournament in Hamburg, Germany, by a madman who wanted her rival, Steffi Graf, to
claim the No. 1 ranking. And that she did, for many years to come. Seles was robbed, but
she was courageous. After overcoming a debilitating emotional state, Seles returned in
August, 1995. Just five months later she won her fourth Australian Open. Foot injuries and weight gain slowed her comeback pace. Eventually she accepted the fact that she
could no longer be as competitive as she wanted to be, and she retired in 2008. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame last July.
Martina Hingis: Hingis—both revered and reviled —left the tour temporarily in 2003, because of foot and ankle injuries; she came back in 2006. Then, in 2007, she was, according to
some, "driven out of tennis" after testing positive for cocaine use during the 2007 Wimbledon. Hingis denied this vehemently but was suspended for two years.
That was the end of the road for competing on the women’s tour. Some of us have been thrilled to learn that this summer she will partner Anna Kournikova at the Wimbledon exhibition event and will be playing Team Tennis, which includes a stop in Philadelphia (my neck of the woods) for matches that will be played at Villanova University. It’s certainly unlikely that Team Tennis is a precursor to a return to the women’s tour since she will be 30 in September.
Martina Navratilova: She retired in 1994 at 48 and came back in 2003 at age 47. She has
continued to collect titles in women’s and mixed doubles to this date — at age 54! This week, Navratilova will partner Jana Novotna in the French Open senior doubles competition.
Justine Henin: Henin — queen of “Never say Never land" — is the most puzzling comeback
of all. It was only two years ago in May of 2008, that Henin, ranked No. 1 at the time,
shocked the tennis world when she announced she was retiring — just one month before
the French Open, which she had won three years in a row (2005-2007) Her reasons? She
was mentally and emotionally drained, her body couldn’t take it, and she wanted to do
something else with her life. By the way, Henin’s retirement left the road open for a
2008 French Open victory by the 2007 runner-up Ana Ivanovic, who shot up to No. 1, and who has faltered ever since, with a current ranking of just 41.
As we know by now, Henin was bounced out of the current French Open by Samantha Stosur, 2-6, 6-1, 6-4.
At the time of her retirement, Henin said during a news conference: "I realized that I was at the end of the road. I lived through it all, I had given it all."
No, she would never come back. She was done with tennis. Done, done, done.
Well, we all remember that, right?
Jean Kirshenbaum is a Tennis Now contributing writer and avid tennis player based in Pennsylvania. Her previous columns include Dressed To Kill: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly and Tennis Nearly Killed Me...And Then It Saved My Life.