Tennis story by Gareth Bowman, Fri, 27 Jan 2006 01:12:00 GMT


MELBOURNE - Kim Clijsters was hit with yet another injury scare, as she had to retire from her semi-final match up against Amelie Mauresmo of France. The latter was leading 5-7 6-2 3-2 when Clijsters rolled her ankle and had to withdraw.

This means that Mauresmo will face Belgian Justine Henin-Hardenne, who overcame Russian sensation Maria Sharapova 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 in her semi-final match. Clijsters has just returned from a longish injury lay-off and looked good to reach the final with strong play in the first set, but Mauresmo hit back in the seconds and broke serve to clinch it at 6-2.

However, the Belgian rolled her ankle while reaching out to a low ball and said afterwards that although she wanted to finish the match, she was forced to retire when her leg could no longer take it, "It's very frustrating, because I felt like in that third set I was really getting into it," said Clijsters.

"I really felt like, if I kept playing the way I was going, anything could have happened. Of course it's frustrating. Even with pain, with the ankle, I still wanted to try, but I felt it straight away that I wasn't going to be able to push off sideways on my forehand." Clijsters has been plagued by injuries ever since she won the US Open last year to end her Grand Slam drought.

She was hoping to avenge her defeat to Henin-Hardenne in the 2004 Australian Open final, but had to retire when she felt unable to continue, "My first two matches I played just terrible but won because my opponents made more unforced errors than I did. Then gradually it started to get better," she said. " Compared with Martina's match, I really felt like I was ready to go from the first ball. That's why this makes it even more frustrating.
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This will be Amelie Mauresmo's first Grand Slam final since she lost to Martina Hingis in 1999.

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