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Perrotta: Henin faces tougher road than Clijsters
The news we’ve all expected for weeks will soon become official: Justine Henin, the former world No. 1 and seven-time Grand Slam title winner, will return to professional tennis next season, according to two Belgian newspapers. An announcement is reportedly scheduled for Tuesday.
Henin recently congratulated fellow Belgian Kim Clijsters on her stunning comeback to the WTA tour, which netted a U.S. Open title after less than a month of competition. Henin, of course, was a better player than Clijsters, and so one might assume that her return to the top might take even less time, and bring her even more spoils.
Perhaps, but don’t be surprised if this Belgian finds her second act more difficult. While it’s true the competition at the top of today’s tour isn’t as strong as it was when Henin and Clijsters left the game, Henin’s tennis is not tailor made for instant success. To wit:
*She’s high style, but also high risk. Henin is the most versatile player of her generation: She hits the ball cleanly off both her forehand and backhand, slices well, snaps off crisp volleys, moves incredibly well, and even serves with power, no small feat for a woman her size (she is listed at a shade shorter than 5-foot-6, but in person seems closer to 5-foot-4). The problem is that Henin plays a bigger game than her body ought to permit. At her best, as she was when she defeated both Williams sisters on her way to the 2007 U.S. Open title, she took a lot of risks and received many rewards. But it took Henin a long time, and a lot of fine-tuning, to reach that point in her career, and there were many tournaments (the 2004 and 2005 U.S. Opens come to mind) when she pushed herself to her limit and didn’t produce the desired effect. Clijsters is a different sort of player. She’s a bigger, stronger athlete than Henin, and one always gets that sense that she’s playing within her limits, or even conservatively. Clijsters can win more matches by simply keep the ball in play. Henin plays tennis on the edge, and often that results in brilliance. The price she pays is having many more mediocre performances.
* She’s prone to injury. Henin always struggled to stay healthy, and that’s not going to get easier this time around. Next June she’ll turn 28, which is fast approaching “elderly” on the women’s tour. If she’s going to make a big splash, she’ll have to get in top shape, play just the right amount of tournaments, and remain healthy for at least six or seven months on her first attempt, because any serious setback would probably preclude her from making another go of it.
* Her confidence is easily shaken. Clijsters earned a reputation as a choker in her first stint on the tour, while Henin rightly became known as a champion. It was Henin, though, who seemed to expend more nervous energy on court and at times look physically ill when the last days of a tournament rolled around. She always stared at her coach, Carlos Rodriguez, in her box and generally seemed unconvinced of her ability to win. When I wrote a profile of Rodriguez for the June 2008 issue of TENNIS, the most striking thing Rodriguez said to me was this: “She doesn’t believe, even today.” Henin often lacked confidence, even after she reached the final of six out of the last eight majors she had played (she won three of them). If Henin’s comeback gets off to a rocky start, her doubts might quickly turn into surprising defeats.
Add to all this that the expectations will be much greater for Henin, especially now that Clijsters has made a return to tennis look so easy. Henin has as much talent as any player in the world, and an equal amount of determination. Tennis is a much better sport for her presence. Still, I’ll be surprised if she can carve up her former rivals as quickly, and as convincingly, as Clijsters did this summer.
Tom Perrotta is a senior editor at TENNIS magazine.
http://www.tennis.com/features/general/features.aspx?id=187096
Sorry if this has been posted before... I thought it was an interesting article, although I think Henin will be back on top at the end of 2010.
The news we’ve all expected for weeks will soon become official: Justine Henin, the former world No. 1 and seven-time Grand Slam title winner, will return to professional tennis next season, according to two Belgian newspapers. An announcement is reportedly scheduled for Tuesday.
Henin recently congratulated fellow Belgian Kim Clijsters on her stunning comeback to the WTA tour, which netted a U.S. Open title after less than a month of competition. Henin, of course, was a better player than Clijsters, and so one might assume that her return to the top might take even less time, and bring her even more spoils.
Perhaps, but don’t be surprised if this Belgian finds her second act more difficult. While it’s true the competition at the top of today’s tour isn’t as strong as it was when Henin and Clijsters left the game, Henin’s tennis is not tailor made for instant success. To wit:
*She’s high style, but also high risk. Henin is the most versatile player of her generation: She hits the ball cleanly off both her forehand and backhand, slices well, snaps off crisp volleys, moves incredibly well, and even serves with power, no small feat for a woman her size (she is listed at a shade shorter than 5-foot-6, but in person seems closer to 5-foot-4). The problem is that Henin plays a bigger game than her body ought to permit. At her best, as she was when she defeated both Williams sisters on her way to the 2007 U.S. Open title, she took a lot of risks and received many rewards. But it took Henin a long time, and a lot of fine-tuning, to reach that point in her career, and there were many tournaments (the 2004 and 2005 U.S. Opens come to mind) when she pushed herself to her limit and didn’t produce the desired effect. Clijsters is a different sort of player. She’s a bigger, stronger athlete than Henin, and one always gets that sense that she’s playing within her limits, or even conservatively. Clijsters can win more matches by simply keep the ball in play. Henin plays tennis on the edge, and often that results in brilliance. The price she pays is having many more mediocre performances.
* She’s prone to injury. Henin always struggled to stay healthy, and that’s not going to get easier this time around. Next June she’ll turn 28, which is fast approaching “elderly” on the women’s tour. If she’s going to make a big splash, she’ll have to get in top shape, play just the right amount of tournaments, and remain healthy for at least six or seven months on her first attempt, because any serious setback would probably preclude her from making another go of it.
* Her confidence is easily shaken. Clijsters earned a reputation as a choker in her first stint on the tour, while Henin rightly became known as a champion. It was Henin, though, who seemed to expend more nervous energy on court and at times look physically ill when the last days of a tournament rolled around. She always stared at her coach, Carlos Rodriguez, in her box and generally seemed unconvinced of her ability to win. When I wrote a profile of Rodriguez for the June 2008 issue of TENNIS, the most striking thing Rodriguez said to me was this: “She doesn’t believe, even today.” Henin often lacked confidence, even after she reached the final of six out of the last eight majors she had played (she won three of them). If Henin’s comeback gets off to a rocky start, her doubts might quickly turn into surprising defeats.
Add to all this that the expectations will be much greater for Henin, especially now that Clijsters has made a return to tennis look so easy. Henin has as much talent as any player in the world, and an equal amount of determination. Tennis is a much better sport for her presence. Still, I’ll be surprised if she can carve up her former rivals as quickly, and as convincingly, as Clijsters did this summer.
Tom Perrotta is a senior editor at TENNIS magazine.
http://www.tennis.com/features/general/features.aspx?id=187096
Sorry if this has been posted before... I thought it was an interesting article, although I think Henin will be back on top at the end of 2010.
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