29 January 2011, Melbourne Park, Australia
Having won the US Open a total of three times, Kim Clijsters has now increased her tally of Grand Slam titles to 4, and her career titles to 41. Clijsters defeated Li Na in the final of The Australian Open, in Melbourne, 3-6 6-3 6-3. It was a close match, and Li Na looked to be getting the better of Kim at 6-3 3-2 up, but Kim then picked up her game to win six consecutive games. Clijsters had lost to Li in the final of the lead-up event in Sydney, but Kim’s experience of Grand Slam Finals played its part.
The Australian Open women’s final was the most wated tennis match ever, with over 135 million viewers watching the match in China alone.
Clijsters applauded the crowd in her on-court speech: “I finally feel like you guys can call me Aussie Kim, because I won the title. I’ve been coming here for many years and you guys have always been amazing. It helps so much.”
Kim has now won the last four Grand Slam finals that she has featured in, having lost the first four. She will rise from No.3 to No.2 in the new rankings, the highest ranking she has held since her comeback to the WTA tour. The victory also takes her career prize money to $23,686,916, and she is the current holder of two of the four Grand Slam titles.
Throughout this year’s Australian Open, Kim has been wearing an outfit that was inspired by another Fila champion – Australia’s Evonne Goolagong-Cawley. Evonne won the Australian Open four times, which makes it even more fitting that Kim won her first Australian Open title wearing that particular outfit.
Fila has also been worn by 2 other Australian Open women’s champions -Monica Seles and Jennifer Capriati, who both won the event twice.
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