Clijsters to retire again after United States open

Former world number one Kim Clijsters has confirmed that she will bring down the curtain on her second career at the end of this year's US Open, Belgian news agency Belga has reported. The 28-year-old came out of retirement in 2009 after more than two years out of the sport, winning three more grand slam titles to take her career tally to four. Injury, which has hampered the Belgian throughout her career, has already forced her to pull out of the upcoming French Open and on Tuesday she said the US Open beginning in late August would be her last tournament. "In principle, I will stop after the US Open. That's the tournament where I have had my greatest triumphs and it is therefore very special to me," she told a news conference at the headquarters of her sponsors Galaxo in Paal, Belgium."The [Flushing Meadows] stadium is about 45 minutes from our house in the United States and so my in-laws can be there." Clijsters won her first US Open title in 2005 and marked a sensational return to tennis with a second in 2009 before successfully defending the title the following year. She also won the Australian Open in 2011 and, by reaching the semi-finals at her next tournament in Paris, reclaimed the number one world ranking after a gap of 256 weeks. The hip injury which forced her to withdraw from this year's French Open robbed her of a chance to finally win the Roland Garros tournament, where she twice lost in the final.