MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) Working mother Kim Clijsters took the opportunity to clarify on center court at the Australian Open that she is not pregnant with 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 your 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 U.S. Open champion had just won her second-round match Thursday, 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 reveal his message said Clijsterslooks really grumpy'' and more busty than usual. Woodbridge joked his TV career was now over.
The 27-year-old Clijsters, known as one of the friendliest and polite 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 from Woodbridge. When her match ended Thursday, Clijsters saw that Woodbridge was her interviewer and chuckled.
``I saw him walk out there, it's like, 'OK, I'm going to get him back now,''' she said.
Motherhood clearly agrees with Clijsters' career. The former No. 1 took time off the tour when she married and had a child - daughter Jada, born in February 2008. She returned from a 2 1/2-year retirement to win the U.S. Open in 2009, just three tournaments into her comeback.
The accomplishment made Clijsters the first mother to win a Grand Slam singles title since Evonne Goolagong Cawley at Wimbledon in 1980. In tribute to motherhood - and to the Australian tennis great - Clijsters is wearing a green shirt-and-skirt outfit at this year's tournament that was inspired by what Goolagong wore in her Grand Slam win.
Clijsters said that her sponsor, Fila, also sponsored Goolagong and came up with the idea.
``It's an honor to be wearing it,'' she said.
TENNIS DIPLOMACY: The doubles team that proudly calls itself the ``Indo-Pak Express'' is giving new meaning to the idea that athletes can serve as ambassadors for their countries.
U.S. Open doubles finalists Rohan Bopanna of India and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan have written letters to national leaders proposing they play a match for peace on a court spanning the Indian-Pakistan border - a prospect that political analysts might consider unimaginable.
The neighboring countries have been through three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947 and spent almost all the time between in a state of heightened military tension.
The letters have gone to both the prime minister and presidents of both countries,'' said Qureshi, adding the letters were sent last year.We're still waiting.''
The idea is that Bopanna would play on the Pakistani side of the border and his Pakistani teammate would be on the Indian side.
It is a political issue in the end because there are a lot of security concerns,'' Bopanna said.I think right now they have more priorities.''
The No. 10-seeded doubles team has been playing together on-and-off since 2003. They gained attention at Wimbledon last year where they started wearing sweatshirts with the slogan ``Stop War, Start Tennis'' as part of a campaign backed by a Monaco-based group called Peace and Sport.
Requests for the sweatshirts started pouring, giving the players the idea to manufacture and sell them online, said Bopanna. Momentum continued at the U.S. Open, where the United Nations ambassadors from their long-at-odds countries sat together in the stands to watch their matches - a development that Aisam called ``a huge thing.''
The pair says they are optimistic that the proposed peace match will be allowed.
Things are going in the right direction. We just have to keep playing our matches and get more and more publicity,'' Aisam said.Hopefully we can get that (match) as well this year.''
AUSSIE HOPES - AND FEARS: Australian teen Bernard Tomic advanced to the third round, keeping alive Australian dreams for a male champion. For now, at least.
Tomic's next obstacle is none other than top-ranked Spanish conqueror Rafael Nadal.
The 18-year-old wildcard entry was the only one of six Australian men to make it through to the second round. He advanced with a 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3), 6-3 win over No. 31 Feliciano Lopez of Spain to secure his first appearance in a Grand Slam third round.
Hometown favorite Lleyton Hewitt lost a five-set match in the first round to longtime rival David Nalbandian. Hewitt won Wimbledon in 2002 and the U.S. Open in 2001, but Australia hasn't produced a homegrown winner of its national championship since Mark Edmondson in 1976.
Nadal easily won his second-round match against American Ryan Sweeting, 6-2, 6-1, 6-1.
Asked if he had any advice for his young opponent, Nadal smiled: ``Play very bad, please. That's what I can say to him.''
Tomic didn't need to look at the draw twice to recall who he was playing next.
I can't believe that I'm playing him,'' Tomic said.What an opportunity it is to play him, in a third round as well. It's a dream come true. Look, I've got nothing to lose.''