MELBOURNE – Misfiring Kim Clijsters Wednesday admitted she would be on her way out of the Australian Open if she cannot improve in her crunch semi-final with in-form Russian Vera Zvonareva. “Everything has to be better (against Zvonareva),” Clijsters said. “I mean, serving, returning, the unforced errors. Everything has to be better.
“But I’m in the semi-finals and I don’t feel like I’ve played my best tennis probably. “So it’s a good thing. I feel that I’m hanging in there, working hard to win my points. Sometimes that’s probably even more of an achievement than winning your matches very easily.” Clijsters acknowledged she only had 24 hours to get things right before her semi-final.
“I’m going to try, we’ll see tomorrow,” she said after her quarter-final victory. “I mean, I know that I’m also going to have to go out there and play harder, hit the lines better and everything. “Thinking about the experience that I’ve had throughout the years, you know, I’ve always been able to kind of lift, not always but most of the time, I’ve been able to lift my game when it was really necessary. “So hopefully I can count on that experience a little bit as well — we’ll see.”
Injury was turning point for Zvonareva: Russia’s Vera Zvonareva says an ankle injury in 2008 was the catalyst that turned her from being a very good player into one of the elite and a serious challenger for a maiden Grand Slam crown. Zvonareva was highly impressive as she overcame a distraction in the crowd and a 21-gun Australia Day salute to defeat Czech Petra Kvitova 6-2, 6-4 in the quarter-finals at Melbourne Park on Wednesday.
She will now play third seeded Belgian Kim Clijsters for a place in Saturday’s final and a showdown against either world number one Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark or in form Chinese number one Li Na. Zvonareva, 26, looked a top-class player from the moment she joined the WTA tour in 2000 but despite cracking the top 20 in 2003, over the next four years she was unable to go the next step and break into the top 10. The world number two then injured her ankle during the Hobart International in early 2008 and was forced to withdraw before the final.
She attempted to play the Australian Open, but had to retire in the first round. “Then I had to take one month off and then there was a tournament in Doha where I was playing and coming back after the injury (where she lost in the final to Maria Sharapova).
“I think I started looking at things a bit differently. I started thinking: ‘Okay, you can get injured any moment. Your career can be over. You’ve got to try your best every day’,” she said. “Since that, I think that tournament turned things around a lot for me. Something changed. I’m just trying to take the best out of each day, out of each match.”
