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Coach Carl Maes Believes that Kim Clijsters Can Still Make Progress November 11, 2001 De Standaard MADRID -- Coaches are as important as the ranking of their players. Those who are part of the top, reach the media and get respect. One does not speak about the others. Carl Maes knows the story. When he coached the 12 year old Kim Clijsters as VTV-coach (Flemish Tennis Federation), he was also green. Now he is the man behind the success story of the number 5 in the world. Carl Maes, age 31, is at the Fed Cup in Madrid as co-ommentator of Belgian (Flemish) commercial TV channel Kanaal 2. If you ask him about his part in the rise of Kim Clijsters, he is the first to minimise it. All credit goes to Clijsters and her parents. He merely has offered her solutions to develop herself as good as possible. Modesty becomes Maes. "Kim had it as a kid," he says. "She was a raw diamond. My task was to polish her. There are a lot of 12 year old girls who have what it takes to get to the top. Yet only a small part succeeds. The step to the pro life is not evident. Kim has taken that step with flair and she has to thank herself for that in the first place. A coach may offer the best technique and knowledge, if the player does not absorb that, he’ll be useless for his efforts. Kim assimilated everything with great ease. The last year she also developed as a personality. She radiates something, commands more and more respect, on and off the court." Commanding respect and yet be popular, it seems two opposite things. However Clijsters has that rare mix of authority and spontaneity. "That’s right," says Carl Maes. "She has lodged herself in the top 5 and only this status makes that other players that are ranked below her, look up at her." "But she puts tennis in relativity in an astonishing way. That is spoon-fed by her parents. Last week she played the second round at the Masters against Sanchez. A few hours earlier, she still was playing with the little dog of the Spanish player. Other players don’t look for much contact, they are on their own, precisely because they see a threat in the others. Kim is not like that. She is very open and social and talks to everyone. Only on court it becomes serious." Maes is convinced that Clijsters still can make progress. Only the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, remain untouchable. "I am convinced that Kim can do even better than she showed. She and also Justine were there when it mattered. They played more consistently than before. But from time to time they dropped a stitch and went out in smaller tournaments in the first or second round." "Their level has risen and with that the respect that I mentioned. You see diminishing the confidence of their opponents. If they have to play Kim or Justine, there are many who accept their superiority on forehand. Kim is now in the top 5, but yet can climb up. Certainly because of the Williams sisters playing that little. If they would play as many tournaments as the other girls, they would be the numbers 1 and 2 with a lead. Their tennis is of another kind. They are enormously physically dominant although their technique is rather rudimentary." How long he will remain as her coach, is an open question. Maes has a renewable contract of a year. "I have a good agreement with father Lei. He always did more than was fixed by contract. The last two years I am her personal coach, but there will be a day when she won’t need me anymore. In fact I already do less now. Kim gets to know the tennis world. I am stand-by. It is good that she knows I am there. I still can polish certain details. But that I will continue to do this for years, is unlikely. I like to teach and probably there will come a day that I pick that up again."