Clijsters says comeback was inspired by father

Belgium's former world number one Kim Clijsters (picture) has said her football-playing father Leo helped her back from a career-threatening injury.

Clijsters feared a serious wrist injury would prevent her competing again at the top level, but she bounced back in style this year to win back-to-back titles at Indian Wells and Miami.

It was at Indian Wells last year when her problems first began. A comeback attempt in Berlin ended in frustration and led to surgery shortly before Wimbledon.

Then when she was playing in a small tournament in Belgium in October she tore a tendon and feared the worst.

"They said it can heal in any normal person who doesn't have to use it in the position that I have to," said Clijsters in Warsaw where she is competing in her first European claycourt tournament of the season.

"But in my position (it could be) that it doesn't heal, and when I heard that I really didn't want to believe it."

It was then that she turned to her father, the Belgium footballer of the year in 1988, for advice.

"That's when my dad helped me. He's a very positive-minded person," she said. "He went through a lot of problems with his knees when he was playing soccer.

"He was in a similar situation where he had surgery and was out for eight months. He was telling me that story and it gave me a lot of positive energy, that he could come back."

The 21-year-old Clijsters said there were moments when she began making other plans.

"I love to work with kids. My sister has tennis camps in Belgium now and I was helping her with that. But not yet. There's time to do those when I'm older."