Kim Clijsters will breathe a welcome breath of fresh air into a stagnating women's tennis game this week as the charismatic Belgian takes the first tentative steps on a possibly long comeback trail at the Cincinnati Open.
The former world No 1 is hoping to take a leaf out of the book of another illustrious tennis mum, Lindsay Davenport, who won two of the first three tournaments she played on returning to the professional circuit after giving birth to baby boy Jagger in June 2007.
It is a tall order because the unranked Clijsters has been given a tough wild card start to what she calls her "second career" having drawn the buoyant Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli, the conqueror of Venus Williams in the recent final of the Stanford Bank Classic.
Clijsters, out of action for more than two years as she prepared for the arrival of baby daughter Jada 18 months ago, is raring to go again even if her comeback is initially limited to a single match.
At 26, five years younger than Davenport was on her return, Clijsters has time on her side as she aims to reclaim top-10 status and seeks to follow in the footsteps of famous Australians Margaret Court and Evonne Cawley by winning a grand slam in motherhood.
"I've been practising for a long time now and I am anxious to start," said Clijsters, who won the US Open four years ago and will be hoping to turn back the years at the end this month. Before that she will give herself a three-tournament test run starting tomorrow.
"It was really necessary to get back into shape but now I've been there for a while and I want to play matches. I look forward to playing.
"I want to take these three tournaments and see where am I at and find out what do I need to work on in the off-season.
"Although I feel good in practice, that doesn't mean it's necessarily going to be that way in matches. I want to get a feel for it all over again and re-evaluate my game and my physical condition and go from there."
Before her retirement, Clijsters had developed a strong rivalry for world supremacy with her Belgian compatriot Justine Henin. After Henin quit the game last year, Clijsters rejoins a tour which has seen a cluster of Eastern Europeans emulate her in recent months, none of them convincingly.
Russia's Maria Sharapova briefly looked like being a worthy successor to Henin's throne until being struck down by a serious shoulder injury a year ago.
Sharapova, like the Belgian, is now keen to make up for lost time and is moving in the right direction in advance of the US Open, despite her serve falling apart in the semi-final loss to Italian Flavia Pennetta in the semi-finals of the LA Championships.
Sharapova is now six tournaments into her comeback after shoulder surgery and has been protecting her serving arm throughout that time. Once she feels confident enough to go for broke on what used to be a penetrative delivery, her punishing ground strokes look good enough for her to make the top 10 again.
"You can see her lack of faith in the serve is taking its toll on other parts of her game," Robert Lansdorp, Sharapova's former coach, said after Sharapova's exit.
Even the triumphant Pennetta was sympathetic.
"Of course she's got to be frustrated," said the Italian. "She used to be one of the best servers on the tour, and now she has some problem with the serve."
Clijsters too realises what she is up against. "In tennis, it's very important that you're very stable there, the hips and the core," she said. "With the pregnancy, that's something that was totally gone."
wjohnson@thenational.ae
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Padmaavat
Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Starring: Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor, Jim Sarbh
3.5/5
Company%20profile
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Top financial tips for graduates
Araminta Robertson, of the Financially Mint blog, shares her financial advice for university leavers:
1. Build digital or technical skills: After graduation, people can find it extremely hard to find jobs. From programming to digital marketing, your early twenties are for building skills. Future employers will want people with tech skills.
2. Side hustle: At 16, I lived in a village and started teaching online, as well as doing work as a virtual assistant and marketer. There are six skills you can use online: translation; teaching; programming; digital marketing; design and writing. If you master two, you’ll always be able to make money.
3. Networking: Knowing how to make connections is extremely useful. Use LinkedIn to find people who have the job you want, connect and ask to meet for coffee. Ask how they did it and if they know anyone who can help you. I secured quite a few clients this way.
4. Pay yourself first: The minute you receive any income, put about 15 per cent aside into a savings account you won’t touch, to go towards your emergency fund or to start investing. I do 20 per cent. It helped me start saving immediately.
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
The biog
Name: Capt Shadia Khasif
Position: Head of the Criminal Registration Department at Hatta police
Family: Five sons and three daughters
The first female investigator in Hatta.
Role Model: Father
She believes that there is a solution to every problem