Two-time Champion And ‘part Jersey Girl'

By Author: pangsiyan
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Kim Clijsters made short work of Ana Ivanovic on Sunday for her 18th straight victory spanning five years at the United States Open, the tournament at which she happens to have won her only two Grand Slam titles. There has not been such home-court advantage at the National Tennis Center since John McEnroe.

Venus Williams is the last American in the women's draw, but Clijsters is the only player left with a commutable home in the New York area.

There are weeks during the North American hardcourt summer when Clijsters retreats to the house she owns in Wall, N.J., with her husband, Brian Lynch. Wall is one town inland from Belmar, where Lynch grew up a huge Knicks fan, the third of four sons of Richard Lynch, a retired Belmar police chief.

My parents are still in Belmar and my brothers all live and work in the area, Lynch said. I was the only one who ventured off.

They are not quite the cast of Jersey Shore, but Lynch said that Clijsters seemed to enjoy being part of his big, noisy Irish family in the quiet beach community.

The reputation has become tainted because of the show, but Kim really ...
... feels comfortable here, really at home, Lynch said after his wife, the defending Open champion, breezed into the quarterfinals with a 6-2, 6-1 dismantling of the unseeded Ivanovic. When Kim is comfortable, she is pretty tough to beat, so I guess, yeah, you could call her part Jersey girl.

She played the first match of the day in Arthur Ashe Stadium, when the crowd is sparse, typically sleepy. Two years ago, when Ivanovic looked like the next big thing in women's tennis, this might have been a premier slugfest instead of a third-round yawner. Then again, two years ago, Clijsters was at her primary home in Belgium, thinking she was finished with tennis, content with her 2005 Open title.

This is their story. Lynch played basketball at Villanova, where he was a teammate of the N.B.A. players Tim Thomas and Malik Allen. He graduated in 2000 and took his 6-foot-6 frame and small-forward game to Europe. He moved around — Germany, Israel, Greece, Poland, Italy, France, not in that order — before landing in Belgium in 2004.