Shortly before the 2002 US Open, she hired De Hous as her new coach and continued to work with him through 2005. Under De Hous, Clijsters won two WTA Tour Championships and two Grand Slam doubles titles. They split a week after she won her first Grand Slam singles title at the 2005 US Open. It was reported that De Hous left because he was unhappy with only receiving a $7,500 bonus from her $2.2 million in US Open prize money; however, he denied this was his only financial compensation and attributed his departure to wanting to "take on new challenges" after all of their success in 2005. Clijsters opted to play without a coach from then until her first retirement.