The bug seems to have bitten when Kim was asked to play an exhibition match against Steffi Graf at Wimbledon this year. “I was very honoured, and started training really hard,” she said. “The more I worked at it, the more my hunger for the ball increased. I kept asking myself if a comeback would be possible. That’s why I’m taking the chance; I’m going after the challenge. Call it a second career rather than a comeback.”

Kim retired from competition in May 2007 because of a wrist injury, and married basketball player Brian Lynch in July that year. The couple had a baby girl, Jada, in February 2008. Her father, former Red Devil Lei Clijsters, died in January this year.

Born in June 1983 in Bilzen, Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters was an accomplished junior player, coming second at Wimbledon as a junior in 1998, and doubling up with Jelena Dokić to win the French Open the same year. The following year she made it to the fourth round of the adult tournament at Wimbledon, where she was defeated by Steffi Graf, her childhood idol. She played her first Grand Slam final at Roland Garros in 2001, losing to Jennifer Capriati. In August 2003 she became the first ever number one in the world rankings without a Grand Slam victory to her name, and held the spot for 12 weeks.

But injury plagued her career, from 2004 on when a wrist injury and surgery took her out of competition for almost a year, made worse by a premature comeback which made the injury worse. The US Open in 2005, however, marked her first Grand Slam victory, against Mary Pierce in two sets. Injury returned the following year, this time in the hip and ankle, forcing her to withdraw from some important matches. Nevertheless, she managed to rise to number one again.

Kim will train with the Belgian Fed Cup team for their matches against Canada next month, and later take part in tournaments in Cincinnati and Toronto in August before the US Open at the end of the month. For the latter Grand Slam tournament, however, she will need a wild card, for which she has applied, and which is unlikely to be refused. What her plans are after that, nobody is saying. “Obviously the chance exists that I could take part in tournaments after that, but I’m not looking that far ahead for the moment,” she said last week. “I don’t necessarily want to be the best in the world.”

She does have a new priority in her life now, she said. “I’ve got a completely different life now: I’m married, I have a little girl and I lost my Dad.” Asked how she would fit her plans to Jada, she replied, “That will be a question of management, but of course she comes first.”