Ten things to know about Kirsten Flipkens

27 year old Kirsten Flipkens is the most surprising semi-finalist on the women’s side at Wimbledon this year. The Belgian takes on Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli on Thursday and will be hoping to continue her fairy tale run at SW19. Here’s ten things you need to know about the Belgian.

In 2002, Flipkens won the girls’ US Open doubles title with Elke Clijsters, sister of Kim Clijsters. In 2003, she won the Wimbledon juniors title beating Anna Chakvetadze 6–4, 3–6, 6–3 and the US Open juniors title beating Michaëlla Krajicek, 6–3, 7–5.

In 2009, Flipkens beat world no. 30 Ágnes Szávay and Britain’s Elena Baltacha at Wimbledon to reach the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time in her career, where she lost to top seed Dinara Safina. She also reached the third round of the US Open that year, beating Jelena Dokic and Anabel Medina Garrigues, before losing to eventual champion Kim Clijsters.

In April 2012, Flipkens stepped off a flight from Thailand to Belgium after a tournament and felt a heaviness in her legs. On examination, doctors discovered four blood clots in her calves. Two days later, she was due to take another flight to Japan. Had she got on that plane, she was told, there was a strong possibility she might not have gotten off it alive. As a result, she did not play for two months and her ranking dropped to no. 262. She also lost her funding from the Belgian Tennis Federation.

Flipkens is still required to take blood-thinning drugs and wear tight compression socks whenever she flies for more than three hours.

She beat top seed and world no. 5 Samantha Stosur in the first round of the WTA event in ‘S- Hertogenbosch last June and also beat Italy’s Roberta Vinci en route to the semi-finals. She won 2 ITF titles, her first WTA title in Quebec City and also qualified and reached the semi-finals in Linz – all in the second half of the 2012 season.

Flipkens thanked good friend and former world no.1 Kim Clijsters after her win over Kvitova in the quarter-finals. “She’s been there for me through the good and bad times. I have to thank her. Kim was one of the people last year still believing in me. The people who still believed in me, I could count them on one hand. I’m so, so happy. You cannot imagine. We’ve known each other from when we were six years old, I practice at her academy and our mums are very close friends. We’ve been texting all the time and she wanted to call me yesterday but we’re superstitious so we’re not going to speak on the phone until I’m out of the tournament.” Clijsters tweeted that Flipkens’ win on Tuesday left her in tears.

She reached the fourth round of a Grand Slam for the first time earlier this year at the Australian Open in Melburne in January, where she lost to Russia’s Maria Sharapova.

Coming into Wimbledon, Flipkens had reached the last 6 at Birmingham and the finals at ‘S- Hertogenbosch. With her quarter-final win on Tuesday, she has a 10-2 record on grass this year.