By Nick Georgandis 


My favorite female player ever, Kim Clijsters, announced Monday that she'll be hanging up her racquet professionally for the final time after this year's US Open - the event that has defined her wonderful career.

Clijsters' announcement Monday in Brussels came in the same fashion that she has dictated her entire career - honest, open and her way.

Where as other women of her era have seem distracted by whether they should be models, sex symbols and product endorsers, Clijsters has always kept her focus on the most important things in her life - her family and her tennis.
She retired from tennis abruptly in May of 2007 when injuries began to beat her down. As it turned out, she became pregnant right around the same time and spent nearly two years away from the game - in no great hurry to bow to the pressures of the tour or her endorsements and give herself or her fans an inferior product.

When she returned in 2009, it was in story book fashion at the US Open, complete with adorable daughter Jada bouncing around on the court to celebrate Mommy's big win - the first mother to win a Grand Slam title in almost 30 years.

She did it again in 2010, and added the Australian Open crown in early 2011, briefly gaining the No. 1 slot, before a series of injuries have dampened the last 12+ months for her on the tour.

But rather than make one fruitless comeback after another, "Aussie Kim" has once again decided to do things her way - focusing on the things that are most important to her immediate future - Wimbledon, the Olympics and that old friend the US Open - before she rides off into the sunset as one of the greatest players of her generation.