- published: 19 Nov 2011
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Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters (Dutch pronunciation: [kɪm ˈklɛistərs]; born 8 June 1983) is a Belgian former professional tennis player. Clijsters is a former world No. 1 in both singles and doubles.
Clijsters won 41 WTA singles titles and 11 WTA doubles titles. She won four Grand Slam singles titles: three at the US Open, in 2005, 2009, and 2010 and one at the Australian Open in 2011. She was also runner-up in four Grand Slam singles tournaments and won the WTA Tour Championships singles title in 2002, 2003, and 2010. In doubles, she won the French Open and Wimbledon titles in 2003. She was also runner-up in two Grand Slam doubles tournaments, one WTA Championships doubles tournament, and one Grand Slam mixed doubles tournament. In 2001, Clijsters was part of the Belgium Fed Cup winning team. Clijsters announced her retirement with immediate effect on 6 May 2007, but almost two years later, on 26 March 2009, she publicly declared her intent to return to the WTA tour for the 2009 summer hard court season. In only her third tournament back, she won her second US Open title, becoming the first unseeded player and wildcard to win the tournament, the first unranked player to win a Grand Slam and the first mother to win a major since Evonne Goolagong in 1980.
Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American professional tennis player who is ranked No. 1 in women's singles tennis. The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) has ranked her world No. 1 in singles on six separate occasions. She became the world No. 1 for the first time on July 8, 2002, and achieved this ranking for the sixth time on February 18, 2013. She is the reigning champion of the French Open, Wimbledon and Olympic women's singles and doubles. Williams is popularly regarded as the greatest female tennis player of all time.
Williams holds the most major singles, doubles, and mixed doubles titles combined amongst active players, male or female. Her record of 36 major titles puts her fifth on the all-time list and second in the open era with: 21 in singles, 13 in women's doubles, and two in mixed doubles. She is the most recent player, male or female, to have held all four major singles titles simultaneously (2002–03 and 2014–15), the fifth woman ever to do so and only the third player, male or female, to achieve this record twice after Rod Laver and Steffi Graf. She is also the most recent player, together with her sister Venus Williams, to have held all four Grand Slam women's doubles titles simultaneously (2009–10).