Working mother Kim Clijsters took the opportunity to clarify on center court at the Australian Open yesterday that she is not pregnant with child No. 2.
Add one more rule to the adage that you should never ask a woman if she's pregnant: Don't text message the question to her friend, either.
Former Australian tennis star Todd Woodbridge learned that lesson the hard way. And Clijsters reveled in publicly chiding him, in one of the more amusing on-court interviews at a Grand Slam tournament.
The US Open champion had just won her second-round match yesterday, swiftly beating Carla Suarez Navarro 6-1, 6-3, and was greeted by Woodbridge for an on-court interview.
"You thought I was pregnant?" she lightheartedly asked Woodbridge, drawing stadium-wide laughter as she informed him she had seen the text message he'd sent to Australian doubles player Rennae Stubbs.
"Are you?" he asked, blushing.
"No, I'm not" she said, leaning into his microphone to recount that his message said Clijsters "looks really grumpy" and more busty than usual. Woodbridge joked that his TV career was now over.
The 27-year-old Clijsters, known as one of the friendliest and politest players on the women's tour, later said she'd enjoyed the playful banter.
The day before the match Clijsters said she was chatting with Stubbs, a close friend, about "babies and having a second one" when Stubbs showed her the text message from Woodbridge. When Thursday's match ended and Clijsters saw Woodbridge was her interviewer, she chuckled.
"I saw him walk out there, it's like, 'OK, I'm going to get him back now,'" she said, smiling.