Clijsters Wins 18th Successive Match, to Play Stosur in US Open Quarter-finals

Clijsters wins 18th successive match, to play Stosur in US Open quarter-finals

Kim Clijsters reached the quarter-finals of the US Open by beating Ana Ivanovic rather easily in a fourth round match, 6-2, 6-1 on Sunday. This win means that Clijsters has now won 18 successive games at the US Open, including a tournament win in 2009 and 2005. She hadn’t participated in the tournament from 2006 to 2008.

Speaking about the streak, Clijsters did say that she tried not to think about it and focus on the game on hand. She also said that she always loved playing in US and her records were ample proofs of the same.

After the win, Clijsters said, “I really tried to use the chances that I had, and that’s what I did really well. And then once I was up 3-1, I went to 4-2, and I felt like I was dictating really well during the points and kind of using the two sides of the court well.”

Clijsters will now play Samantha Stosur in the quarter-finals of the US Open. Stosur won a record-breaking encounter against Elena Dementieva, 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (2). The match was the latest any women’s game at the US Open has ever ended, at 1.37 am, and looked like it was going in Dementieva’s favour when she served for the match at 5-3 in the third set. However, Stosur broke back and went on to clinch the tie-breaker.

In the two other fourth round games, Venus Williams kept the American flag flying with a 7-6, 6-3 win over Shahar Peer. She will now take on Francesca Schiavone of Italy, who beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in another fourth round game, 6-3, 6-0.