Thursday, February 18, 2010

Justine Henin's Playing style


Justine Henin began her professional career on the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) tour in May 1999 as a wild card entry in the Belgian Open at Antwerp and became only the fifth player to win her debut WTA Tour event.

Justine Henin is a globally acknowledged tennis player, who has had huge success on all surfaces of the game, and has so far achieved Grand Slam success on clay and hard courts, winning 4 French Open titles, including 3 consecutive titles between 2005 and 2007, which ties Monica Seles' record of most consecutive Roland Garros titles won by a woman. This achievement has made her the most successful female clay court player of the last decade (2000-2009). She has also won 3 Grand Slam titles on hard court, winning the US Open title in 2003 and 2007, and the Australian Open title in 2004. She has also reached the Wimbledon final 2 times, in 2001 and 2006, but is yet to win this title.


Henin established herself as a top competitor in 2001 when she reached the women’s singles semifinals of the French open. In 2008, Henin started the year as the World No. 1. 14 January marked Henin's 100th career week as World No. 1, and on 10 March, Henin became only the seventh female player to be ranked World No. 1 for 12 consecutive months. On 14 May 2008, Henin announced her immediate retirement from professional tennis. She was 25 years old and ranked world No 1 at the time. She announced her return to competitive tennis on September 22, 2009.In September 2009, Justine Henin announced that she would return to the WTA Tour after a twenty month break.

At the 2010 Australian Open, Henin was given a wildcard as an unranked player. In the first round, she defeated Kirsten Flipkins from Belgium 6-4, 6-3. In the second round, Henin defeated World No. 5 Elena Dementieva from Belgium, 7-5, 7-6(6) in a two hour fifty minute match that commentators felt was worthy of a final. Henin approached the net forty-three times, winning thirty-five of those points. Finally at last she set up a clash with world No. 1 Serena Williams in the 2010 Australian Open Ladies Final. This was the first time in their long rivalry that Henin and Serena Williams met in a Grand Slam Final.