Kim Clijsters WTA
Belgium

Kim Clijsters

Belgium

Quick Answer

Kim Clijsters is a 43-year-old WTA tennis player from Belgium. Kim plays right-handed.

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Quick Facts

Age 43 years
Born June 8, 1983
Plays Right-Handed
Country BEL Belgium
Tour WTA
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Career Achievements

Statistic Value
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Biography & Playing Style

Kim Clijsters: A Champion's Journey

Early Life & Background

Kim Clijsters hails from Belgium, a country known for its rich culture and passionate sports fans. Born in 1983, she picked up a tennis racket at a young age, showing early promise in the sport. Clijsters quickly rose through the junior ranks, laying the foundation for what would become a remarkable professional career.

Playing Style

Clijsters is celebrated for her aggressive baseline play and exceptional footwork, traits that have made her a formidable opponent on the WTA Tour. As a right-handed player standing 175 cm tall, she combines her height with an impressive reach, allowing her to execute powerful groundstrokes and effective volleys. Her signature style includes a blend of power and finesse, enabling her to dominate matches with both aggressive serves and strategic placements. Clijsters’ ability to adapt her game to different surfaces further showcases her versatility, contributing to her impressive career win-loss record of 471-124.

Career Highlights

Throughout her illustrious career, Kim Clijsters has secured 40 WTA titles and made a significant mark in the Grand Slam arena, winning four major titles. These Grand Slam victories are a testament to her resilience and skill, placing her among the elite in women’s tennis. Her career spans various phases, including a notable comeback that saw her reclaim her spot among the top players after taking time off to start a family. Clijsters' accomplishments have not only solidified her reputation as a top competitor but also as a beloved figure in the sport.

Legacy & Impact

Kim Clijsters' impact on tennis extends beyond her on-court achievements. She is widely recognized for her sportsmanship and the grace with which she has navigated both triumphs and challenges in her career. As one of the few players to achieve success after returning from retirement, Clijsters serves as an inspiration for many aspiring athletes, demonstrating that determination and passion can lead to remarkable comebacks in sports.

Quick Facts

  • Full Name: Kim Clijsters
  • Country: Belgium
  • Height: 175 cm
  • Playing Style: Right-handed
  • Career Titles: 40
  • Grand Slam Titles: 4
  • Career Win-Loss Record: 471-124

Kim Clijsters remains a significant figure in the world of tennis, with a legacy that continues to inspire both fans and players alike. Her journey from a young tennis enthusiast in Belgium to a celebrated champion is a story of talent, hard work, and resilience.

Last updated: September 2026

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Equipment & Gear

Kim Clijsters's Racket and Gear

If you close your eyes and picture Kim Clijsters, you probably see her doing the splits on a hard court to reach a ball nobody else would get, then sending it back with interest. Her racquet in that picture is almost certainly a Babolat Pure Drive. Few players in tennis history have been so closely tied to one racquet family, and her story with it spans more than two decades.

What Racket Does Kim Clijsters Use?

Clijsters retired for the third and final time in April 2022, so she no longer uses a tour racquet in competition. Throughout her career, however, her frame came from one brand: Babolat.

  • Babolat since 1999. Babolat has said it began working with Clijsters in 1999, when she was only 16. That puts her among the first wave of top players to carry the company's racquets as Babolat moved from strings into frames.
  • The Pure Drive. Clijsters became one of the best-known faces of the Babolat Pure Drive, the power-oriented frame that turned into one of the best-selling racquets in the world. When she came back from her first retirement in 2009, Babolat said she would use her Pure Drive for the Wimbledon exhibition that marked her return, and she then won the 2009 and 2010 US Opens and the 2011 Australian Open with the Pure Drive.
  • The 2020 comeback. When she returned to the tour again in 2020, Babolat listed her among its players using the new generation of Pure Drive at that year's US Open. So across three separate careers, the racquet family stayed the same.

Babolat has since celebrated 30 years of the Pure Drive, and Clijsters has taken part in that anniversary storytelling, which tells you how closely the brand links the frame to her.

Racket Specifications: Known vs Unknown

Here we have to be careful. The retail Pure Drive is well documented: a 100-square-inch head, a 16x19 string pattern and a stiff, powerful frame weighing about 300 grams unstrung in its standard version. It has been updated many times since the late 1990s, with changes to the cosmetics, the materials and the feel.

What is not reliably documented is the exact specification of Clijsters's own frames. Professionals very often use customised versions of the racquets they promote, with added weight, a specific balance or a slightly different layup, and these details are rarely made public. We have not found a trustworthy source listing her personal weight, balance or swingweight, so we are not going to present guesses as facts. The same goes for the precise version she used in each season.

String Setup

Clijsters's exact strings and tension are not reliably published either. As a Babolat player she would have had access to the company's full string range, but her personal set-up has not been confirmed in any source we trust, so we will leave it at that.

Playing Style & Equipment Connection

Clijsters's game was built on athleticism and balance. She was one of the best defenders of her era, famous for sliding into splits on hard courts, but she was never just a retriever. She could turn defence into attack in one shot, with a solid, flat backhand and a heavy forehand that pushed opponents back.

The Pure Drive suits that style. It is a frame that gives you a lot of easy power and a generous sweet spot, so you can hit deep and hard even when you are stretched or off balance. For a player who spent so much time sliding, lunging and hitting on the run, that forgiveness is a real advantage. The 100-square-inch head also helps on the return, where Clijsters was one of the best in the game.

Similar Setups for Fans

Good news if you want to play with a Clijsters-style racquet: the Pure Drive is still in production and very easy to find.

  • Babolat Pure Drive (current version). The closest retail equivalent. It suits intermediate to advanced players who want easy power and spin from the baseline.
  • Babolat Pure Drive Team or Lite. Lighter versions of the same frame, better if you are still building your swing or want something easier on the arm.
  • Babolat Pure Drive Plus. A slightly longer version for players who want extra reach and leverage on serve.

One word of caution: the Pure Drive is a stiff frame. If you have a history of tennis elbow or play with a lot of arm, try it with a softer string or tension first. And as always, demo before you buy. A racquet that worked for one of the greatest defenders in tennis will not automatically work for your game.

Where She Is Now

These days Clijsters's racquet time is more about clinics and exhibitions than tour matches. She runs the Kim Clijsters Academy in Belgium, has become a co-owner of a Major League Pickleball team and, in 2026, invested in Birmingham City Women. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2017.

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Net Worth & Earnings

Kim Clijsters Net Worth in 2026

Kim Clijsters retired three times, came back twice, won a Grand Slam as a new mother and has since turned up as a pickleball team owner and an investor in women's football. It is fair to say her finances are as unusual as her career. So what is the Belgian legend actually worth in 2026? The short answer is that nobody publishes that number, but her official earnings and business moves give a clear picture.

The Short Answer

Most public estimates put Kim Clijsters' net worth at roughly $20–25 million. Some sites quote $20 million, others around $22–25 million. These are unofficial estimates, not figures from Clijsters or any audited source, and they are based mostly on her prize money plus assumptions about endorsements and investments. Treat them as a ballpark, not a bank statement.

Career Prize Money

The one number we can state with confidence is her official prize money. Across singles and doubles, Clijsters earned about US$24.5 million on court, which places her among the top 20 women of all time in career earnings.

That money came from a career that was brilliant in three separate chapters:

  • 1999–2007: She rose to world No. 1 in 2003, won the 2005 US Open and collected two WTA Finals titles (2002 and 2003), then retired at just 23 in May 2007.
  • 2009–2012: After the birth of her daughter Jada, she returned in 2009 and won the US Open as an unranked wildcard in only her third tournament back. She defended the title in 2010, won the WTA Finals that year and took the 2011 Australian Open, before retiring again in 2012.
  • 2020–2022: A third comeback, interrupted by the pandemic and injuries, ended in April 2022 without the results of her earlier returns.

In total she won 41 WTA singles titles, four Grand Slam singles titles (US Open 2005, 2009 and 2010, Australian Open 2011) and two Grand Slam doubles titles with Ai Sugiyama in 2003. Remember that prize money is gross income, before coaches, travel and tax, so it overstates what a player actually keeps. For more on that, see our guide to how much tennis players earn.

Endorsements

Clijsters was one of the most popular players of her generation, famous for her friendliness and for winning the WTA's sportsmanship award eight times. That kind of image is valuable to sponsors.

Her most famous and longest partnership is with Babolat. The French company has worked with her since 1999, when she was 16, and she has long been one of the faces of the Babolat Pure Drive racquet. She also had apparel and shoe deals over the years, and in Belgium she was one of the country's most recognisable sporting faces during her peak years. The value of these contracts has never been disclosed, so we will not put a number on them.

Businesses and Investments

What makes Clijsters' finances interesting is what she has done since tennis:

  • Kim Clijsters Academy. She opened a tennis academy in her home region of Belgium, which has since expanded into padel as well.
  • Pickleball. In 2023 she became a co-owner of a Major League Pickleball team, the Las Vegas Night Owls, in a group backed by investors including Tom Brady. She has spoken about wanting to help build the sport professionally, from TV to international growth.
  • Women's football. In February 2026 she joined former England player Karen Carney among a small group of minority investors in Birmingham City Women, when the club's women's team was separated from the men's side under new ownership.
  • Tennis roles. She has also worked as a tournament director and served on the WTA board, according to her own account of her career in the business side of the sport.

None of these ventures have published financial results linked to her stake, so their value to her personal wealth is unknown. What they show is a former champion investing in sports she believes in, particularly women's sport.

How She Compares

Clijsters' prize money puts her in the same bracket as her longtime rival and compatriot Justine Henin and American great Lindsay Davenport (about $22.2 million). She is far below the Williams sisters or Maria Sharapova, whose fortunes are driven by very large endorsement deals and businesses. Clijsters built her wealth the steadier way: consistent winning, a loyal long-term sponsor and a set of sensible investments after retirement.

Family

Clijsters is married to American former basketball player Brian Lynch, and the couple have three children. She has divided her time between Belgium and the United States, and family has shaped every one of her retirements and comebacks.

Key Financial Facts

  • Estimated net worth: commonly reported at roughly $20–25 million (unofficial; estimates vary)
  • Official career prize money: about $24.5 million
  • Titles: 41 WTA singles titles, including 4 Grand Slams; 3 WTA Finals titles
  • Longest sponsor: Babolat (since 1999)
  • Business interests: Kim Clijsters Academy, Major League Pickleball team co-owner (Las Vegas Night Owls, from 2023), minority investor in Birmingham City Women (2026)

Inside Kim Clijsters's World

Latest news, records, gear, and stories featuring Kim.

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