Kim Clijsters Returns

Kim Clijsters smiled sheepishly Friday while recounting the unusual way she managed to hurt her right ankle and a toe recently, nearly forcing her to skip the French Open yet again.

Of all the ways for an athlete to get injured, the champion at the past two Grand Slam tournaments sent herself to the sideline while cutting a rug at her cousin's wedding.

It seems so often we forget the most obvious choice. Kim Clijsters walked into the French Open as the reigning No. 2 in the world and yet the idea of her as a top contender to the French Open 2011 title was merely a passing thought.

The reigning U.S. Open and Australian Open champion strained two ligaments at her cousin's wedding in April and was forced to pull out of Belgium's Fed Cup semifinal against Czech Republic but has declared herself fit after resuming training earlier this month.

Clijsters confirmed she will play at Roland Garros with her ankle taped up. The tournament begins on Sunday.

We tend to get scooped up in the endless soap opera that is the Williams sisters or the hot trend that in Maria Sharapova coming off of the Italian Open title, but Clijsters has just as much of a chance to win the open as anyone.

"Increasingly I am going for it," she told her official web site. "I am not totally without pain, but the strong tape round my ankle gives me sufficient security.

At least Schiavone and contenders such as Sharapova, who won last week's Italian Open, and Wozniacki, who reached Saturday's final at Brussels, have been adjusting to the slow, slippery surface lately. Clijsters was the French Open runner-up in 2001 and 2003, but she last played on clay in April 2010.

Indeed, since losing to Henin in the 2006 French Open semifinals, Clijsters' clay-court resume consists of four matches, with two wins and two losses. After her wedding mishap last month, she pulled out of European clay tuneup tournaments; her last match anywhere was March 30.