Greenfin Beta
Semi-Pro
Here's a link to a recent article on Justine Henin where she admitted that the reason she lost to Marion Bartolli in the semis at Wimbledon 2007 was her fear of facing Venus Williams in the finals.
‘The next summer, I lost my semi-final with Marion Bartoli because I was scared of having to play Venus in the final. It was stupid, not at all like me, but it was how it was.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/te...Henin-Im-scared-ending-lonely-lost-again.html
And here's the complete text:
When Justine Henin boards a flight from Belgium to Australia today, she is returning to a world that defined her existence, then almost destroyed her.
She admits to being both excited and afraid of what awaits: not just on her voyage through Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne during an Australian summer, but on the long, challenging trek across the globe leading to Wimbledon in June, a scene of unfinished business for the waif-like Belgian.
‘I know this is what I want to do and I’m excited about my comeback in Australia, but I’m a little scared, too,’ said Henin.
Almost 20 months have passed since Henin, without warning, walked out on tennis after winning seven Grand Slam titles and 41 tournaments. At 25, she seemingly had the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour at her mercy. She was undisputed world No 1, and the reigning French Open and US Open champion.
Yet her supremacy of the game proved to be an illusion, for at heart she was a confused, exhausted and deeply troubled woman. ‘When I think back, whenever I looked in the mirror, the woman I saw was lost,’ said Henin. ‘I was feeling so empty.’
Her story is complex, and altogether more dark than that of another Belgian champion, Kim Clijsters who, four months ago, returned from premature retirement as a wife and mother to savour instant success by winning the US Open to worldwide acclaim.
Clijsters had left tennis as she craved motherhood; Henin had departed as she yearned peace of mind, and felt that only by quitting the game could she discover if tennis was the cause of her melancholy . . . or merely a symptom of it.
As she slipped into what she insisted, at the time, was permanent retirement, a handful of past champions called Henin to check on her welfare. ‘I heard from Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, and Billie Jean King,’ she said.
But was there any word from those she had fought her hardest battles against, like Venus and Serena Williams, perhaps her greatest rivals? ‘No, there was nothing from them,’ she said without disappointment. ‘We never had that much contact, but it’s OK.’
Compassion is not an emotion in much evidence on the women’s Tour, as Henin would acknowledge from her own narrow field of vision until the day, May 14, 2008, she summoned the courage to end her torment.
‘After I stopped, I couldn’t watch tennis for a year,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t interested any more. I was just exhausted mentally and physically. I wanted to discover if I could exist without being a tennis player. Life has been difficult for me.’
She is not being melodramatic. Her mother Francoise died from cancer when Henin was 12, then, through a myriad circumstances, she became estranged for years from her father Jose, her brothers David and Thomas and her younger sister Sarah. Henin found no lasting contentment in marriage, either; she divorced her husband Pierre-Yves Hardenne in 2007 just five years after their wedding.
Yet by spring that year she had become reconciled with her family after her brother David had almost died in a car crash. When she won the French Open that summer, for a third year in succession, her triumph was witnessed for the first time by her entire family watching at courtside.
Paradoxically, her happiness at being reunited with them could not save her from becoming more and more morose with her profession.
As a small woman, just 5ft 6in tall, and with a single-handed backhand of precision and beauty, she had finally tired of punching above her weight, on and off the court.
Henin admitted: ‘I thought tennis was the reason I found it difficult to find a good balance in life. When I came out of this bubble, where I was protected, I faced real life. I had to breath without tennis.
‘A lot of things had happened since I was young, and I needed this time to think about what happened in my whole life and to realise who I am away from tennis. Perhaps I just became an adult.’
Perversely, Henin looked in strangely diverse areas in search of answers: she appeared in a reality TV show and a French soap opera, something that would have been anathema to her as an athlete who shunned celebrity.
And, more pertinently, she travelled to the Congo and Cambodia earlier this year as an ambassador for UNICEF.
‘I felt I came from a different world,’ she said. ‘In the Congo, I saw how hard it was for so many people who had to flee their homes because of the conflict there. They were hungry and had no water. These were people who had nothing in life. It took weeks to recover from what I saw but, in another way, I learned so much. I realised it is so precious to be healthy, and to have people who love you.
‘We have so much, and there are all these people with nothing; sometimes,
life is too complicated. I know I’m going back into the tennis life, where we’re spoiled with limousines and hotel suites, but I know now there are other more important matters. You have to build on the human adventures, not the trophies, not the titles, not the money.’
She can afford such philanthropy, as she has won more than £12.2million through her success on a tennis court. But, perhaps, it is because she has such staggering wealth that she deserves to be believed.
‘Money doesn’t compensate for sacrifices, or for the difficulties you experience if life itself becomes so hard as it had become for me,’ said Henin.
‘When I think of my career, I don’t think of all the money I have won. I just think of the emotion of the moment. As tennis players, we are not better, or worse, than others; we are just different. To lead this life, you are dealing always with constant pressure, constant expectation.’
In Australia, Henin will see Clijsters and her daughter, Jada, for the first time. ‘I dream of having kids myself, just not yet,’ said Henin. ‘I am a godmother five times. But at the moment I’m not seeing anyone, but if this comes to me, I’m open to the possibilities.
‘We put rules in our lives, but, finally, I have no rules. I don’t have to do anything by a certain age. But for me, I accept it is still important to have an adrenalin rush. I’m not ready yet to be at home.’
After playing warm-up tournaments in Brisbane and Sydney, Henin, like Clijsters in New York, will become a focus point at the Australian Open, which begins in three weeks’ time.
‘I’m not making the Australian circuit a big issue, I’m just feeling my way back,’ she said.
It is both the truth and a falsehood; as Henin has worked in solitude for months to reclaim her ranking, and to try to win Wimbledon, the one major to have eluded her. ‘I can’t think about being No 1 right now,’ she said. ‘I’ll need a few months to realise the level I want. ‘But if you are asking: “Is it important to me to be No 1 again?” then it probably is. Yet winning Wimbledon is what I dream about.
‘In 2006, I was just one set away from the championship against Amelie Mauresmo, but I didn’t trust myself enough on grass. I didn’t believe I could do it. Yet it was my opportunity and, after Amelie beat me, it was hard to deal with it.
‘The next summer, I lost my semi-final with Marion Bartoli because I was scared of having to play Venus in the final. It was stupid, not at all like me, but it was how it was.’ Any apprehension Henin is feeling, as she boards her flight to the other side of the world today, is heavily outweighed by the appearance of the different, more open, woman she sees whenever she looks in the mirror now.
‘Everything in life is so precious, but, sometimes, it is too late when we realise it,’ said Henin. ‘I can accept myself just the way I am now, with my qualities and my weaknesses.’
‘The next summer, I lost my semi-final with Marion Bartoli because I was scared of having to play Venus in the final. It was stupid, not at all like me, but it was how it was.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/te...Henin-Im-scared-ending-lonely-lost-again.html
And here's the complete text:
When Justine Henin boards a flight from Belgium to Australia today, she is returning to a world that defined her existence, then almost destroyed her.
She admits to being both excited and afraid of what awaits: not just on her voyage through Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne during an Australian summer, but on the long, challenging trek across the globe leading to Wimbledon in June, a scene of unfinished business for the waif-like Belgian.
‘I know this is what I want to do and I’m excited about my comeback in Australia, but I’m a little scared, too,’ said Henin.
Almost 20 months have passed since Henin, without warning, walked out on tennis after winning seven Grand Slam titles and 41 tournaments. At 25, she seemingly had the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour at her mercy. She was undisputed world No 1, and the reigning French Open and US Open champion.
Yet her supremacy of the game proved to be an illusion, for at heart she was a confused, exhausted and deeply troubled woman. ‘When I think back, whenever I looked in the mirror, the woman I saw was lost,’ said Henin. ‘I was feeling so empty.’
Her story is complex, and altogether more dark than that of another Belgian champion, Kim Clijsters who, four months ago, returned from premature retirement as a wife and mother to savour instant success by winning the US Open to worldwide acclaim.
Clijsters had left tennis as she craved motherhood; Henin had departed as she yearned peace of mind, and felt that only by quitting the game could she discover if tennis was the cause of her melancholy . . . or merely a symptom of it.
As she slipped into what she insisted, at the time, was permanent retirement, a handful of past champions called Henin to check on her welfare. ‘I heard from Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, and Billie Jean King,’ she said.
But was there any word from those she had fought her hardest battles against, like Venus and Serena Williams, perhaps her greatest rivals? ‘No, there was nothing from them,’ she said without disappointment. ‘We never had that much contact, but it’s OK.’
Compassion is not an emotion in much evidence on the women’s Tour, as Henin would acknowledge from her own narrow field of vision until the day, May 14, 2008, she summoned the courage to end her torment.
‘After I stopped, I couldn’t watch tennis for a year,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t interested any more. I was just exhausted mentally and physically. I wanted to discover if I could exist without being a tennis player. Life has been difficult for me.’
She is not being melodramatic. Her mother Francoise died from cancer when Henin was 12, then, through a myriad circumstances, she became estranged for years from her father Jose, her brothers David and Thomas and her younger sister Sarah. Henin found no lasting contentment in marriage, either; she divorced her husband Pierre-Yves Hardenne in 2007 just five years after their wedding.
Yet by spring that year she had become reconciled with her family after her brother David had almost died in a car crash. When she won the French Open that summer, for a third year in succession, her triumph was witnessed for the first time by her entire family watching at courtside.
Paradoxically, her happiness at being reunited with them could not save her from becoming more and more morose with her profession.
As a small woman, just 5ft 6in tall, and with a single-handed backhand of precision and beauty, she had finally tired of punching above her weight, on and off the court.
Henin admitted: ‘I thought tennis was the reason I found it difficult to find a good balance in life. When I came out of this bubble, where I was protected, I faced real life. I had to breath without tennis.
‘A lot of things had happened since I was young, and I needed this time to think about what happened in my whole life and to realise who I am away from tennis. Perhaps I just became an adult.’
Perversely, Henin looked in strangely diverse areas in search of answers: she appeared in a reality TV show and a French soap opera, something that would have been anathema to her as an athlete who shunned celebrity.
And, more pertinently, she travelled to the Congo and Cambodia earlier this year as an ambassador for UNICEF.
‘I felt I came from a different world,’ she said. ‘In the Congo, I saw how hard it was for so many people who had to flee their homes because of the conflict there. They were hungry and had no water. These were people who had nothing in life. It took weeks to recover from what I saw but, in another way, I learned so much. I realised it is so precious to be healthy, and to have people who love you.
‘We have so much, and there are all these people with nothing; sometimes,
life is too complicated. I know I’m going back into the tennis life, where we’re spoiled with limousines and hotel suites, but I know now there are other more important matters. You have to build on the human adventures, not the trophies, not the titles, not the money.’
She can afford such philanthropy, as she has won more than £12.2million through her success on a tennis court. But, perhaps, it is because she has such staggering wealth that she deserves to be believed.
‘Money doesn’t compensate for sacrifices, or for the difficulties you experience if life itself becomes so hard as it had become for me,’ said Henin.
‘When I think of my career, I don’t think of all the money I have won. I just think of the emotion of the moment. As tennis players, we are not better, or worse, than others; we are just different. To lead this life, you are dealing always with constant pressure, constant expectation.’
In Australia, Henin will see Clijsters and her daughter, Jada, for the first time. ‘I dream of having kids myself, just not yet,’ said Henin. ‘I am a godmother five times. But at the moment I’m not seeing anyone, but if this comes to me, I’m open to the possibilities.
‘We put rules in our lives, but, finally, I have no rules. I don’t have to do anything by a certain age. But for me, I accept it is still important to have an adrenalin rush. I’m not ready yet to be at home.’
After playing warm-up tournaments in Brisbane and Sydney, Henin, like Clijsters in New York, will become a focus point at the Australian Open, which begins in three weeks’ time.
‘I’m not making the Australian circuit a big issue, I’m just feeling my way back,’ she said.
It is both the truth and a falsehood; as Henin has worked in solitude for months to reclaim her ranking, and to try to win Wimbledon, the one major to have eluded her. ‘I can’t think about being No 1 right now,’ she said. ‘I’ll need a few months to realise the level I want. ‘But if you are asking: “Is it important to me to be No 1 again?” then it probably is. Yet winning Wimbledon is what I dream about.
‘In 2006, I was just one set away from the championship against Amelie Mauresmo, but I didn’t trust myself enough on grass. I didn’t believe I could do it. Yet it was my opportunity and, after Amelie beat me, it was hard to deal with it.
‘The next summer, I lost my semi-final with Marion Bartoli because I was scared of having to play Venus in the final. It was stupid, not at all like me, but it was how it was.’ Any apprehension Henin is feeling, as she boards her flight to the other side of the world today, is heavily outweighed by the appearance of the different, more open, woman she sees whenever she looks in the mirror now.
‘Everything in life is so precious, but, sometimes, it is too late when we realise it,’ said Henin. ‘I can accept myself just the way I am now, with my qualities and my weaknesses.’
