JERSEY GIRL

Kim Clijsters made short work of Ana Ivanovic on Sunday for her 18th straight victory spanning five years at the U.S. Open, the tournament at which she happens to have won her only two Grand Slam titles. There has not been such home-court advantage at

the National Tennis Center since John McEnroe.

Venus Williams is the last American in the women's draw, but Clijsters is the only player left with a commutable home in the New York area.

There are weeks during the North American hardcourt summer when Clijsters retreats to the house she owns in Wall, N.J., with her husband, Brian Lynch. Wall is one town inland from Belmar, where Lynch grew up a huge Knicks fan, the third of four sons of Richard Lynch, a retired Belmar police chief.

"My parents are still in Belmar and my brothers all live and work in the area," Lynch said. "I was the only one who ventured off."

They are not quite the cast of "Jersey Shore," but Lynch said that Clijsters seemed to enjoy being part of his big, noisy Irish family in the quiet beach community.

"The reputation has become tainted because of the show, but Kim really feels comfortable here, really at home," Lynch said after his wife, the defending Open champion, breezed into the quarterfinals with a 6-2, 6-1 dismantling of the unseeded

Ivanovic. "When Kim is comfortable, she is pretty tough to beat, so I guess, yeah, you could call her part Jersey girl."

She played the first match of the day in Arthur Ashe Stadium, when the crowd is sparse, typically sleepy. Two years ago, when Ivanovic looked like the next big thing in women's tennis, this might have been a premier slugfest instead of a third-round yawner. Then again, two years ago, Clijsters was at her primary home in Belgium, thinking she was finished with tennis, content with her 2005 Open title.

This is their story. Lynch played basketball at Villanova, where he was a teammate of NBA players Tim Thomas and Malik Allen. He graduated in 2000 and took his 6-foot-6 frame and small-forward game to Europe. He moved around - Germany, Israel, Greece, Poland, Italy, France, not in that order - before landing in Belgium in 2004.

The club team happened to be in Bree, Clijsters' hometown. Lynch knew little about tennis, less about Clijsters, but found himself in the VIP room after a game one night, talking to a woman who turned out to be Clijsters' mother.

The subject was bulldogs; they each owned one. When Lynch learned that the famous tennis star was the pretty woman across the room, he figured he had an opening: the canine conversation. He introduced himself. They went on a date and brought their bulldogs. The emotions culminating in marriage were unceremoniously unleashed.

When their daughter, Jada, was born in February 2008, the plan was for Clijsters to stay home while Lynch continued his basketball career, then for a team in Antwerp one hour away. Then there was bad news: Clijsters' father, Leo, had cancer.

"Whatever plan we had became irrelevant once we found out," Lynch said. "It was all about Kim and the baby spending time with her father." Leo Clijsters, 52, died in 2009. Looking for a distraction from her sadness, Kim agreed to play a few exhibitions. She took to the practice court and found that the ball-striking made her move her feet, move forward with life.

"I could see it develop over a month or so," Lynch said. "She would come home and say: 'Last week I couldn't move the way I used to. Today, I could."' She wanted to play tennis again. He knew it was coming and already had a new plan percolating.

"I'd already been playing nine years abroad," he said. "I was almost 31." He told Clijsters he would retire and travel with her on the tour. He would begin building bridges into the coaching career he fancies once Clijsters has gotten tennis out of her system.

When might that be? Lynch said he doubted she was back for the long haul. In her news conference Sunday, Clijsters said, "If I say in six months, 'OK, this has been fun,' and it's been good, you know, and I have achieved what I've wanted to achieve,then I'm the one who decides."

It is a nice place to be, she said, playing not because she has to or because she cannot think of anything better to do. These days, in a Grand Slam event, everything is at stake, or nothing, depending on how she wants to look at it.

"The pressure is a privilege," Clijsters said.

Like all tennis stars, she is a citizen of the world, belonging to whoever chooses to adopt her. She is not an American, but since she is the defending Open champion and part Jersey girl, Arthur Ashe Stadium is her house until someone takes it from her.

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