By Nick Georgandis
Photo Credit: Natasha Peterson/Corleve
(May 26, 2011) If you bet heavy on Kim Clijsters to win the French Open in the office pool, it might be time to start cashing out some of your 401K.
There will be no third-straight Grand Slam title for the World No. 2, thanks to the upset efforts of The Netherlands' Arantxa Rus, a 20-year-old ranked 114th in the world.
A resident of the unlikely town of Monster, The Netherlands, Rus capitalized on a monster choke job by Clijsters, who made 65 unforced errors to hand the opportunity to Rus in a 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 victory.
Before this victory, Rus had never advanced beyond the second round of a Grand Slam. She reached the second round at this year's Australian Open as well as at Roland Garros in 2009.
At the Australian Open, Rus fought through the qualifying rounds and upset American Bethanie Mattek-Sands in the first round of the main draw before falling to Svetlana Kuznetsova.
On Thursday, she broke Clijsters twice in the early part of the third set to take a commanding 4-1 lead. Clijsters had a chance to break back, leading 40-30 in the sixth game, but Rus forced a deuce and then took a 5-1 advantage.
Clijsters tried to hold on, rallying from down 0-30 to gain the advantage in deuce on her next serve, but Rus feasted on more errors to take the win, a fourth straight break for game, set and match. It was the last of a staggering 12 breaks in 17 opportunities for Rus.
To the Associated Press, Rus said, "At 6-5 I had a really good serve game, and then I won the set. Then I was thinking, ‘Yeah, I can win this match.’ "
Serves killed Clijsters throughout as she recorded 10 double faults. In fact, Rus needed just nine winners of her own to take the match, which lasted 2 hours and 2 minutes.
"My ankle feels fine, so that has absolutely nothing to do with it," Clijsters told the media. "She obviously started building up more confidence, started playing a lot better, and was really kind of putting me on my back foot at the time. I couldn’t really play my aggressive tennis anymore in that third set."
The Dutch upstart will take on Maria Kirilenko, who defeated Chanelle Scheepers 6-1, 6-4.
Clijsters has been nursing an ankle injury that caused her to miss the last several tournaments. After losing the final at Paris in early February, she took the rest of the month off, returning to play Indian Wells in early March.
She was forced to retire in the quarterfinals, lost in the quarterfinals in Miami two weeks later, and has not been back on the court competitively since.
Thursday was Clijsters' first loss to a player ranked outside the top 100 since was stunned by 258th-ranked Beatriz Garcia Vidagny of Spain in the second round at Marabella last spring.
It's her earliest exit from the French Open since her debut there in 2000 when she was bounced in the first round.
In other matches, 12th-seeded Agnieska Radwanska dismissed Sania Mirza 6-4, 6-2, and she'll play Yanina Wickmayer, the 21st-seed. Wickmayer won her match against Ayumi Morita 6-4, 7-5.
This will be the first time they play against each other in their professional careers.
Ninth-seeded Petra Kvitova also advanced after she defeated Zheng Jie of China 6-4, 6-1. She'll face American Vania King in the third round.
Sorona Cirstea defeated fellow Romanian Alexandra Dulgheru, the 27th seed, 6-2, 7-5, and she'll play either sixth-seeded Li Na.