Former world number one Kim Clijsters completed a happy comeback from injury when she beat Russian qualifier Vera Douchevina 7-5, 6-0 in the final of the Eastbourne WTA tournament on Saturday.
Belgian Clijsters, who missed most of last year with a wrist problem and then suffered a knee injury soon after her first comeback in March, picked up a prize of $93,000 in the Wimbledon warm-up.
The first set, played in fierce sunshine, was a battle with five breaks of serve.
The 18-year-old Douchevina beat Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova in the 2002 junior final at the All England Club and initially showed no trace of nerves in her first WTA Tour final.
Douchevina, who knocked out top-seeded Frenchwoman Amelie Mauresmo in the second round on Wednesday, matched Clijsters for power on groundstrokes and took the first break in the third game.
Clijsters, who has dropped to 17th in the world and was seeded seventh here, broke straight back, helped by a double fault.
The Belgian surrendered her serve again in a long seventh game when she saved five breakpoints before Douchevina hit a winning service return to go 4-3 up.
LOST HEART
Again the 22-year-old Clijsters broke back straight away, this time to love, and she clinched the set in 42 minutes with another break in the 12th game.
Douchevina, ranked 54th in the world, seemed to lose heart. She picked up just six points in the second set which was over in 16 minutes.
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Asked about Wimbledon next week, Clijsters, a semi-finalist at the grasscourt grand slam in 2003, played down her chances.
"I still feel like my game isn't there 100 percent but I feel like it is improving," she said. "It is not everything together going perfectly. I still have a lot of things to improve on."
Clijsters won back-to-back tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami before injuring her knee in Berlin. At the French Open, she lost in the fourth round to world number one Lindsay Davenport after being 6-1, 3-1 up.
"The loss against Lindsay really gave me the motivation to come here and train because I really felt like there was a lot of work to do," said Clijsters, who spent a week in Eastbourne preparing for the tournament. "I was very happy to get away from the clay."
