Unlike Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams, Kim Clijsters had no plans for post childbirth tennis comeback: "I never thought that I was going to come back"

Kim Clijsters admits that she never had desires to make a comeback to tennis when she was pregnant with her first child. This is unlike Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams who both made comebacks and were always destined to do so in their own minds.

Clijsters, a former World No.1 made a surprise return to the women's tour in 2009 and went on to win the US Open that year seeing off Caroline Wozniacki in the final. But the 40-year-old admitted that the move to return like that was initially never on the cards.

Read also

Former World No.1 Andy Roddick never returned to Russia after being 'robbed' in the street by a police officer

Also she used a hidden motivation interestingly which was Wimbledon installing a new roof on the Centre Court which sparked her desire to go and hit.

"When I stopped playing and I had Jada, I never thought that I was going to come back. Like Serena [Williams] and Naomi [Osaka], they all kind of already said ‘yeah I'm coming back as soon as my body's capable. I'll try to push it and be ready for a certain timeline’. I didn't do that. I was done playing tennis, I was done with the crazy circus of traveling on the road and dealing with everything else that comes outside of what happens on the tennis court," she said on the latest episode of the Served with Andy Roddick podcast.

"And then you know met Brian, had a tough time with my father who passed away, he was sick for a year. My sister and I, we took care of him. And then had Jada. So a lot of life-changing things happened in my life in a short amount of time. And then the invitation to play Andre [Agassi] and Steffi [Graf] at Wimbledon, when they built the new roof on Centre Court, that kind of sparked my time to go and work out again, to go hit," she added.

Read also

Heartbreak in Rio for Carlos Alcaraz: has to withdraw and is now in danger of missing Indian Wells