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kim cljisters

Federer wins three tie-breakers to win ’06 title: On this day in Sony Ericsson Open history

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The Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, Fla., is the biggest, most prestigious tennis tournament in the United States next to the US Open. Its history dates back to 1985 and is documented in pages in my book ON THIS DAY IN TENNIS HISTORY ($19.95, New Chapter Press, www.TennisHistoryBook.com). The following are events that happened in the history of the tournament – also previously called the Lipton Championships, the NASDAQ-100 Open and the Ericsson Open – as excerpted from the book from April 2.

2000 – Pete Sampras wins an inspired men’s singles final at the Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, Fla., defeating Brazil’s Gustavo Kuerten 6-1, 6-7 (2), 7-6 (5), 7-6 (8) in 3 hours, 18 minutes. Fighting off the hot, humid South Florida conditions, the tenacious groundstrokes of the 1997 French Open champion, and a rare case of nerves at the closing stages of the match, Sampras prevails to win his 62nd – and third to last – title of his career. Says Sampras of the match, ”I haven’t played a match this tough in many, many months. You can do all the training, all the practicing, but it is always different when you go out and compete. But I can definitely walk out of this tournament feeling real confident about the way things went.”

2005 – Kim Cljisters defeats Maria Sharapova 6-3, 7-5 to win the women’s singles final at the NASDAQ-100 Open in Key Biscayne, Fla. Coupled with her win two weeks earlier in Indian Wells, Calif., Clijsters becomes only the second woman to win the rare “Coast-to-Coast Double” sweep of the two important Indian Wells-Key Biscayne back-to-back tournaments in the spring calendar. Clijsters joins Steffi Graf, who won both Indian Wells and Key Biscayne back-to-back in 1994 and 1996. Her win over Sharapova moves her to No. 17 in the rankings, after missing most of 2004 with a wrist injury. She last ranked No. 1 in the world on Nov. 9, 2003.

2006 – Roger Federer wins three tie-breakers in a match for the first time in his career, defeating Ivan Ljubicic 7-6 (5), 7-6 (4), 7-6 (6) to win the NASDAQ-100 Open in Key Biscayne, Fla. The win was Federer’s 48 straight match victory in the United States, dating back to August of 2004. Federer also becomes the first player ever to win the “Coast-to-Coast Double” – the American hard court titles in Indian Wells and Key Biscayne – back to back in consecutive years.

STEADY CLIJSTERS BEATS VENUS FOR SONY ERICSSON TITLE

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By Randy Walker

Kim Cljisters won the biggest tennis tournament in the United States last September when she won the U.S. Open.

Saturday, she won the second biggest.

The Belgian dominated Venus Williams 6-2, 6-1 in just 58 minutes in the title match at the Sony Ericsson Open, regarded by many as the most important tournament outside of the four Grand Slam tournaments.

Clijsters, 26, played steady, consistent tennis while Williams was not in top form, committing numerous errors. During one stretch, Clijsters won 17 straight points in the second set, many off of unforced errors from the 29-year-old Williams.

”I was ready to go and was seeing the ball really well,” said Clijsters to Mary Joe Fernandez on CBS Sports following the win. “I stayed really consistent during the match today.”

While Clijsters was an unseeded, unranked wild card entry last September in the U.S. Open, Clijsters was seeded No. 14 in Key Biscayne this week, and will move back into the top 10 – at No. 10 – on the WTA Tour computer on Monday with her tournament victory.

The title was the 37th of Clijsters’ career and her third since she came out of retirement last summer – the other two being the U.S. Open last year and earlier this year in Brisbane, Australia. The title was also the second for Clijsters in Key Biscayne, having previously won the title in 2005, defeating Maria Sharapova 6-3, 7-5 in the final.

Williams was seeking her fourth Key Biscayne title and was riding a 15-match win streak – with two tournament titles – entering the early spring hard court event.

VENUS WILLIAMS WINS BNP PARIBAS SHOWDOWN AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

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NEW YORK – Venus Williams won the title at the BNP Paribas Showdown for the Billie Jean King Cup exhibition tennis series Monday at Madison Square Garden, defeating Kim Cljisters 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 in the final.

Williams won $400,000 for winning the one-night, four-player event that featured players who won the previous year’s major titles or ranked No. 1 in the world.

Venus Williams and Kim Clijsters
Venus Williams and Kim Clijsters

Williams, the former world No. 1 and the five-time Wimbledon champion, defeated French Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-4 in the one-set, no-ad scoring semifinal match earlier in the evening. Clijsters, the 2009 US Open champion, saved a match point in defeating former world No. 1 Ana Ivanovic 7-6 (7-2) in the other semifinal. Ivanovic substituted for defending champion Serena Williams, the 2009 Australian Open and Wimbledon champion, who withdrew due to a leg injury.

Cljisters earned $300,000 for the runner-up showing. Losing semifinalists Ivanovic and Kuznetsova earned $250,000 each.

A healthy crowd of approximately 10,000 fans attended the event, but attendance waned at the later stages of the night, that concluded at approximately 11:30 am.

The event is in its second year after Serena Williams defeated Venus in last year’s final, with Jelena Jankovic and Ivanovic being the other two participants in the 2009 debut year.

Jerry Solomon of StarGames, Inc., organizers of the events, said that he hopes the event can be transformed into a two-day event featuring all four winners of the major titles for men and women, with two men’s and two women’s semifinals being played on one day and the finals being played on a second day. John McEnroe, during the ESPN2 telecast of the final, also promoted that a multi-day event featuring the four men’s and women’s winners of all four majors would be a great stage for tennis. McEnroe noted a similar event for men that he played in the late 1970s, early 1980s called the Pepsi Grand Slam. The International Tennis Federation ran an event called the Grand Slam Cup from 1990 to 1999 that featured the 16 men who fared the best over the Grand Slam tournaments over a calendar year. A women’s Grand Slam Cup was held in 1998 and 1999.

BNP Paribas Showdown Field Set For Madison Square Garden

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Serena Williams and Venus Williams will be joined by 2009 US Open champion Kim Cljisters and 2009 French Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova at the 2010 BNP Paribas Showdown for the Billie Jean King Cup. The event will be played Monday night, March 1, 2010 at Madison Square Garden in New York City and will feature two, one-set semifinals followed by a best-of-three-set final for $1.2 million in prize money. To purchase tickets call 866-858-0008 or visit TICKETMASTER or THEGARDEN.com .

The event will feature a nationwide “Youth Registration Night” that the United States Tennis Association has dubbed “Tennis Night In America.” The evening will kickoff the tennis season in the United States with the USTA ushering in signups for tennis programs across the country.

The field and ticket announcement for the event came nine years to the day when the 22nd and final staging of the year-end WTA Tour Championships at Madison Square Garden took place when Martina Hingis beat Monica Seles 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-4 in a 2-hour, 21-minute marathon final. After being held at Madison Square Garden since 1979, the year-end event moved to Munich, Germany starting in 2001. Madison Square Garden also was the long-time venue of the Masters Championship year-end men’s event.