For those who watched women’s tennis struggle with a rash of injuries for the last year and a half, there was only one reaction to Kim Clijsters’s stellar run through two straight tournaments: At last.

After a long wait, the women’s game is primed for a superb spring and summer. Clijsters has not skipped a beat despite two serious wrist injuries that kept her from matches, though not practice, for more than a year. Fellow Belgian Justine Henin-Hardenne is progressing more slowly, though she beat 10th-seeded Jelena Jankovic at the Family Circle Cup yesterday and could round into form by the time the French Open rolls around in late May.

Mix in two healthy Williams sisters, Maria Sharapova, Lindsay Davenport (taking her last lap of the tour), Amelie Mauresmo, three Russian wildcards (Elena Dementieva, Anastasia Myskina and Svetlana Kuznetsova), and Australian Alicia Molik, and we have the most competitive field of top women players that the game has ever known.

Five years ago, when Venus Williams began a two-year run that included four Grand Slam titles, finding a compelling women’s match before the quarterfinals or even the semifinals was a rare treat. Now we see the Williams sisters battling each other as early as the quarterfinals, only to face Sharapova in the next round, as happened at the Nasdaq-100 Open in Key Biscayne, Fla. Once the Belgians take back two of the top 10 – or even top five – seeds in any given tournament, the possibilities for quality tennis midway through events will increase dramatically.

Clijsters will arrive there first. Once the top-ranked player in the world, she improved her ranking from 133 to 17 after winning 14 consecutive matches at the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, Calif., and the Nasdaq-100 Open, while dropping just two sets along the way. She beat five of the top 10 players in the world and nearly pitched a shutout against world no. 2 Amelie Mauresmo, 6-1, 6-0.

Unlike the Williams sisters and the Russians (minus Myskina), Clijsters does not pound her way past her opponents. She’s more in the mold of the fleet-footed Martina Hingis, except bigger, stronger and with a better serve. Clijsters plays patient tennis, moving the ball around the court, hitting deep shots, and waiting for opponents to make mistakes, either through impatience or careless strategy. Clijsters does not often approach the net, but she chooses her spots well and generally finishes off the points once there.

During her run, the steady Clijsters has brought out the worst in her rivals. Davenport raced to a 4-0 lead against her before falling into one of her characteristic funks to lose the first set and eventually the match, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2. Dementieva, whose fluff serve inspires sympathy, was near helpless in a 6-2, 6-1 defeat. Mauresmo looked lost during her semifinal loss, as has been her habit in the most important matches. All the while, Clijsters ran down shots, kept her mistakes to a minimum and took few chances, giving her opponents ample time to overhit.

But Clijsters’s 6-3, 7-5 victory over Sharapova in the Nasdaq-100 Open final was the best of the lot. The subtle Belgian is the perfect foil for the young, explosive Russian. Sharapova slugs away at every ball, and has rightfully developed a reputation as one of the most intense competitors on the tour.

Clijsters, in contrast, takes short steps and maintains perfect balance. Her feet are light, her movement concise and crisp. As she dragged Sharapova from side to side, Clijsters created angles for winners or simply forced Sharapova into awkward, low-percentage shots.

Sharapova will no doubt have more chances against Clijsters. The best part for those of us watching from the sidelines is that their matches, along with many others in the months to come, are more likely to turn on a few points, rather than lasting for what seems like a few minutes.

Over the next two months of clay court tennis, look for Clijsters to continue her climb up the rankings. Twice a loser at the French Open, Clijsters is the early favorite to win her first Grand Slam in Paris. She and Henin-Hardenne are the best clay court players of the top women, as they either move much better or are more consistent than Sharapova, Davenport, and the Williams sisters. More likely to pose a challenge are Dementieva, Myskina (the defending champion) or, on an off-day, several lesser players who thrive on clay, such as Italy’s Silvia Farina Elia, who put up a spirited fight against Davenport on Sunday in the Bausch & Lomb Championships at Amelia Island, Fla.

Clijsters would like to erase her memories of Paris as quickly as she has put her injury behind her. In 2001, she lost to Jennifer Capriati in the final, 12-10 in the third set. Two years later, Henin-Hardenne drubbed her, 6-0, 6-4.

If she does excise those demons, Clijsters will make a bit of history, too: Success in Paris would mean a different woman had won the last six Grand Slams. Almost 40 years have passed since that last happened, beginning with the 1966 Australian Open and ending with the 1967 French Open. As omens go, the woman’s game couldn’t ask for a better one.