Kim Clijsters

Belgian tennis ace who burst onto the sports scene in 2001. On 11 August 2003, she became number one in the world when she beat Lindsay Davenport in the JP Morgan Chase Open in Los Angeles. She was the first player to be top-ranked without having won another major title such as Wimbledon, U.S. Open or other major tournaments. On 20 October 2003, Clijsters lost her ranking after 10 weeks to Henin-Hardenne. On 15 February 2004, she won her 20th career title when she defeated Mary Pierce in the Paris Open. In 2004 she is ranked second in the world behind Henin-Hardenne. Clijsters father is a soccer champion and her mother is a gymnast; she chose tennis and attended tennis school at an early age. By age 6 she was participating in tennis championships and at age 11 won the Belgian Junior Championship catching the eye of a coach who saw her potential. In 2000 she met another ace Lleyton Hewitt and they embarked on a serious relationship. She broke her wrist in May 2003 and stopped playing. In late October 2004, Clijsters announced that she and her fiancé Lleyton Hewitt, had called off their engagement. They had been planning a February 2005 wedding. Two years later, on 13 July 2007 she married American basketball player, Brian Lynch, in a 6 AM wedding in Bree, Belgium. They welcomed their daughter Jada, born 27 February 2008 at 1:35 PM local time in Tongeren, Belgium. At 7:06 PM on 18 September 2013, Clijsters gave birth to their second child, a son, Jack Leon Lynch [1]. On 30 October 2016, at 3:24 am in Bree, Belgium, she gave birth to their third child, a son, Blake Richard Lynch. Her dad Leo, a former soccer played, died at age 52 of lung cancer on 4 January 2009. After a two-year hiatus from pro tennis, she became the first unseeded woman tennis player to win the 2009 US Open on 13 September. Link to Wikipedia biography Read less