Clijsters out for a month due to injury

BRUSSELS, April 5 (UPI) -- Kim Clijsters, ranked No. 2 in women's tennis, said Tuesday she will miss about a month of play because of shoulder and wrist injuries.

Clijsters cited a busy tournament schedule as a cause of the injuries.

"I don't want to force anything," Clijsters said in a posting on her Web site.

"I felt something was not quite right. There were too many successive aches and pains that just didn't want to disappear."

Among the events she said she will definitely miss are next week's Fed Cup semifinal, in which Belgium is playing the Czech Republic, and the Madrid Open, which begins April 30.

If the layoff is a month, Clijsters would return to the tour in time to tune up for the French Open, which runs May 22-June 5. Clijsters has won the last two major tournaments, taking last year's U.S. Open and the 2011 Australian Open. She has never won the French Open, losing in the finals in 2001 and 2003.