Career ends for Clijsters with US Open loss

 Not accustomed to losing the last point at the US Open, Kim Clijsters picked up her bag, waved and bid adieu to the fans in Arthur Ashe Stadium – summoning up a melancholy smile before making her way to the tunnel.

Her stay at her last professional tennis tournament ended much earlier than she’d expected. A winner of the last 22 matches she had played at the U.S. Open, Clijsters finally dropped one Wednesday, and with that loss ended a singles career that included four Grand Slam titles and thousands of good memories.

“It’s been an incredible journey,’’ Clijsters said, “and a lot of dreams for me have come true because of tennis.’’

She fell 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5) to 18-year-old Laura Robson of Britain to finish with a 523-127 record, 41 titles and 20 weeks ranked No. 1, most recently in February 2011.

Through the starts and stops of a career that spanned 15 years, Clijsters handled all the wins and losses with class, standing out as someone who could keep up with the powerful games and personalities that took over her sport – and get people to like her while she was doing it.