"Henin Now Ranks Among All-Time Best" ~ Matthew Cronin
After a crisp forehand volley winner, the destruction was complete. Justine Henin bent over the net, dropped her racket and broke into a wide smile after winning her fourth French Open crown with a 6-1, 6-2 domination of Ana Ivanovic in the final on Saturday.
The 25-year-old Belgian is already the world's best clay courter. And given how high she sets the bar for herself, she must be already thinking about what she needs to do to seize the mantle of Best Player of her Generation from Serena Williams.
She coolly handled Serena in the quarterfinals and then shattered the dream of tiny Serbia, woman-handling ambitious Jelena Jankovic and then Ivanovic, the charismatic 19-year-old who had no idea what hit her.
"Queen of Clay is good," said Henin when asked what moniker fit her. "It's amazing. When I was a little girl and dreaming of coming here and playing the tournament and winning it, then I did it four times, and three times in a row, and two times without losing a set. It's just great."
Henin is a tornado on clay — and a controlled one at that. She's a master of execution and intensity who understands that on a great day, no other player can touch her because she simply brings too much to the table. No other player can run with her, slide with her, mix and match shots with her. When she first became a significant player in 2001, she was an itsy bitsy retriever with little power. But now she can slug it out off both wings, and is awfully daring in her shot selection.
While she may have been able to beat Serena, Jankovic and Ivanovic by playing steely defense and challenging them to hit through her, she took a different tactic this year, choosing to go on the offensive early in matches. She went for big serves, forehands and heavily topspinned backhands. Most important, she leapt into her returns, taking her foes' second serves early and on the rise, and punishing balls deep and at their feet. All three opponents were out of it by the second set, because they knew that if they couldn't sting a first serve, they would be forced into blocking back a mid-court ball that Henin was ready and willing to crush for a winner.
She drained them of their confidence, and before they knew it they were off the court.
Henin never lost her focus, not for a second. She played every point like it was her last and won most of them. Court Philippe Chatrier (Roland Garros' Center Court) at the French Open is her palace and in four finals there, she's never lost a set. Even more unbelievable — she's only dropped 13 games. That's the stuff of legends, reminiscent of Monica Seles, the last woman before Henin to win three straight crowns, and all-time great Steffi Graf, who won six titles.
"I keep fighting on every point. I don't want to give anything to anyone," Henin said. "I was ready for a big fight. I was ready for an easy match. I was ready for everything. It's good not to expect too many things, and just live the moment."
Ivanovic can learn a lot of Henin, as she showed little composure in the contest, completely frozen by the big occasion and was never able to unleash the powerful arsenal that got her to her first Slam final. Henin and her longtime coach, Carlos Rodriguez, had a long talk last Sunday night about the need to believe in herself and her skills.
"It's only at the end of the tournament that I felt better," said Henin. "I feel free. I feel myself. But I am an anxious person anyway. So I never want to miss any points. I always want to be there when needed. I always was very consistent because I had a very strict discipline in my life. I don't want to lose control, and sometimes when I do things wrong, I can feel it. I have an angel telling me that I should be back on track, and Carlos knows me very well. And I need this discipline to be able to do well. I need someone to help me find the right path. And once I'm on it, then it's okay."
What seems to separate the Belgian is her ability to maintain focus on how she should construct points, rather then allow herself to become enveloped in the meaning of the occasion. Even in her losses in Grand Slam finals, she has never been wiped out.
"In the beginning of the match, I felt okay," Ivanovic said. "I was trying to put the nerves aside, emotions aside. But then, in the first service game, it's all of a sudden, from one point to another. It just hit me. She's been there before, and she won Grand Slams many times before. So she knew how to deal with the nerves."
Henin is still two major crowns short of Serena's mark of eight. They are the same age, but Serena has had to deal with more severe injuries and it's hard to see her going all out for another four years, especially when she still maintains a number of off-court pursuits.
The Belgian doesn't have those kinds of distractions, which means that in great health, she should be able to get herself into contention at every major and threaten Serena's position as the best of the best.
Henin has gone through a lot since the beginning of the year, when she separated from her husband, Pierre Yves Hardenne. After nearly seven years of not talking to her father, brothers and sister, she contacted them during the late winter and has now begun to repair the wounds that came about after the death of her mother, Francoise, when she was 11. Three years after her mother's death, Henin moved into Rodriguez's house because she and her father didn't agree on her career course. She then began to lose touch with her siblings, whom she was angry at for siding with their father.
But feeling blue as her marriage fell apart, she decided to attempt to repair her other significant relationships and on Saturday, her siblings sat in the Friend's Box. They all looked quite pleased, as did Henin, who expanded her support circle significantly.
"It's important to me," said Henin. "It's been seven years now and it's great to have them back. Love is important, life is short and you need to enjoy your time. It's been an unbelievable moment for everyone. What happened in the past is the past. And I just want to move forward and enjoy every moment of my life with them back in it now. It's been hard for me, everything I lived in the last few months, ups and downs, good things, bad things. And then I just realized that it's life. And life is ups and downs and you have to accept it."
With her life coming to together off the court, a bigger task lies ahead for Henin on court — winning the one major crown that eludes her at Wimbledon. She reached the final there twice, falling to Venus Williams in 2001 and to Amelie Mauresmo last year. Henin certainly has the all-around game to win the crown, but has been unable to get over the hump at the All England Club. Plus, her major rivals — the Williams sisters, Maria Sharapova and Mauresmo — bring a lot more to the surface on the green blades.
But can you really doubt Henin, the woman who seems to have an endless supply of motivation? When asked what she's feeling now, she took the word "joy" over pride. She's put her troubles behind her and can see the future clearly with a grin on her face.
"I make my decisions," she said. "I just try to build on something, pretty strong. I just turned 25. I just want to know how I'm going to be happy in my life."
She's off to a pretty good start.
