Portrait of a Champion, in Color
A delightful and expressive tennis player, a cold and guarded person: That's been the prevailing image of Justine Henin the last five years. This weekend, however, we were treated to a more complex rendering of a remarkable champion.
After winning her fourth French Open title, and third in a row, on Saturday, Henin dedicated her victory to the family she hadn't seen, until recently, for seven years. By now you have read or heard about the details. The first Henin child, a girl, died at 2 after a drunk driver veered into her grandparent's yard. Justine, the secondyoungest of four remaining siblings, was a 12-year-old talent when her mother died of cancer. In the ensuing years, she concentrated on tennis, split from her father, her two brothers, and her sister for still-unknown reasons, got married, and, in January, separated from her husband. Not until her oldest brother, David, wound up in the hospital after a car crash, in April, did Henin reconnect with her siblings. When David awoke from a two-day coma, Justine was there.
The pains of Henin's family life, which she would not discuss all these years, never interfered with her tennis. She won five Grand Slam tournaments from 2003 to 2006, and last year reached the final of all four majors while her marriage, presumably, crumbled. If anything, it seemed that Henin was afraid that having too much in her life besides tennis would hurt her career.
A happy Henin, we now know, plays just as well as a troubled one: The same graceful strokes, crisp volleys (like the one that ended the match), fabulous footwork, and relentless pursuit of each point, whether she's ahead by one game or four. Ana Ivanovic, the 19-year-old runner-up from Serbia, suffered from a severe strain of the yips, but she wouldn't have won no matter her mental state. Henin played a nervous game to open the match, and then her serve and her forehand took control. The combination of her confidence, and Ivanovic's incoherence, assured yet another drab women's final at Roland Garros, 6–1, 6–2 (the last compelling one came in 2001, when Jennifer Capriati defeated Kim Clijsters 12–10 in the third set).
"I wanted this victory so much," Henin said. "You cannot imagine how strong I felt."
Although Ivanovic's tennis was terrible, her reaction to it spoke volumes about her potential. Many a player would have cried after a defeat like this; at the very least, her press conference ought to have been a gloomy affair. Instead, Ivanovic was as cheerful and wide-eyed as ever. She admitted that her nerves had stymied her.
"Now I know the feeling," she said. "So next time, probably, when that feeling comes, I will know how to deal with it better."
If Ivanovic can maintain that confidence, next time won't be far off.
