TENNIS: Kim Clijsters played and won her first grass-court match for two years at Eastbourne and emerged with a grin as wide as if she had won Wimbledon yesterday. She was immediately asked if she could win it, which was another tribute to the special powers of recovery of the former world number one.
In April she returned after most of a year out to become the first unseeded player to win back-to-back tier-one titles. Now, after another injury setback, Clijsters beat Jelena Jankovic, the top-20 Serbian, 6-1, 7-5, reaching the second round of the Eastbourne championships as if it were a surface on which she had played most of her life.
She did not rule out her SW19 chances but neither would she discuss them, and also refused to speak in Flemish to Belgian journalists with whom she has a stand-off.
But encouragingly Clijsters was without support for either her wrist or her knee and looked, as she said, "pretty good".
The Belgian had not played on grass since a Wimbledon semi-final loss to Venus Williams in 2003 and came to Eastbourne a week early determined to get in plenty of practice on the surface.
"I have really enjoyed it," said Clijsters, who celebrated her 22nd birthday in the seaside town last week. "It's been fun - I could do my own thing and didn't have to worry about anyone else."
Clijsters, seeded seventh, had expected a tough opening match against Jankovic, the losing finalist at the Birmingham grass-court event at the weekend.
Though she had to fight off two breakpoints in the third game and found that the windy conditions made serving difficult, Clijsters rattled through the first set in just 23 minutes.
Clijsters, a finalist at the Australian Open in 2004, lost her touch briefly at the start of the second set, picking up just one point in two games.
She broke straight back, however, and the set went with serve to a tiebreak where three backhand errors in succession by Jankovic helped Clijsters to a 7-2 win.
Clijsters now faces former Wimbledon champion Conchita Martinez of Spain, the oldest woman in the draw at 33, who beat British wild card Elena Baltacha 7-6 2-6 6-1.
The British number one often played well enough to have scored one of her best wins, but played better when behind than in front.
Russian Elena Likhovtseva became the first seed to go out of the £585,000 tournament, losing 7-6 6-2 to Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli.
Last year's runner-up Daniela Hantuchova also lasted only one round.
The Slovak, ranked 22 in the world, was beaten 6-2 4-6 6-4 by Maria Vento-Kabchi of Venezuela as evening fell on Devonshire Park.
The top four seeds - Amelie Mauresmo of France, defending champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, Australian Alicia Molik and Russian Anastasia Myskina - enter the tournament today after receiving first-round byes.
Meanwhile, champion Paradorn Srichaphan of Thailand eased into the second round of the Nottingham Open with a 6-3 6-2 victory over British qualifier Mark Hilton yesterday.
Sixth seed Paradorn is in line to face French fourth seed Richard Gasquet in the quarter-finals of the pre-Wimbledon event after the teenager beat Czech Tomas Zib 7-6 6-2.
