By Etienne Stekelenburg
April 24 2004

Kim Clijsters did her job in taking Belgium to a 1-0 lead against Croatia. The leading lady of the Belgian Fed Cup team defeats Jelena Kostanic 6-1, 4-6 and 6-1. In the second set the No. 53 of the ranking Kostanic broke Clijsters twice in the 2nd and the 10th game after she lost her own serve in the 7th game.

After losing the first set 6-1, the Kostanic was fighting to come back into the match and she came up with some quality shots to outsmart Clijsters. It brought her to winning the 2nd set.

The Croatian could not keep up with Clijsters’ game pace in the third set and saw the shots going against her. “She picked up the game in the third set and the crucial points in the match were when Clijsters won the long rallies”, Kostanic said about losing the third set.

“She is just too good and the match was much closer than it looked. I didn’t play bad but she started really playing good when I lost my energy.”

“My game plan was to attack her on the backhand but I didn’t notice much about her injury. I was not focused enough on some points. I had many opportunities; a lot of games were deuce. We see what happens tomorrow, I have much confidence because I did not play bad”, said Kostanic about her first game of the meeting between Belgium and Croatia.