Clijsters Out of US Open with Stomach Injury

Kim Clijsters fans were in for a disappointment after the two-time defending champion announced that she was pulling out from the US Open due to a stomach muscle injury. She had earlier missed several tournaments before the Open, including the Wimbledon and a tournament in Toronto due to a muscle strain on her left side.

In a statement she gave on Friday, the champion said, “two weeks of rehab is not enough to heal this injury”.

She also had to pull out of tournaments set for September in Japan and China.

“Obviously I’m very disappointed,” she said. “I trained very hard this summer and felt in a good shape to play the U.S. Open.”

The absence of Clijsters, who ranks number 3 in the world, leaves the Williams sisters and Maria Sharapova as the main headliners for the US Open, which begins on August 29. Serena Williams had earlier won the Rogers Cup in Toronto, but she had recently pulled out of the following week’s event due to a toe injury.

Clijsters had been enjoying her return to the court after two years off to have a baby. She won the US Open in 2009, becoming the first unseeded woman to win the Open and the first mother to win a major since Evonne Goolagong Cawley in 1980.