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by Pete Bodo
Justine Henin is to tennis what the tank watch is to the timepiece crowd, Carhartt overalls are to the workingman, and the Gibson electric guitars is to rock musicians. She's a classic. She seems to incorporate, in that petite frame and with those classic, old-school strokes, the history of tennis, where it's been and, if not exactly where it's going, then why it got to where we are. Her game shimmers, like the northern lights, and as she showed today she has a way of imposing a modulated, classic template on any match she plays.
She has shortcomings, for sure, and not all of those that are directly related to her slight stature. One of those periodic weaknesses that crops up now and then almost waylaid her on the way the the semifinals here in Miami. In the first set of her match with No. 2 seed Caroline Wozniacki, Henin hit her way out of contention in a blaze of ill-advised if inspired bravado.
The tennis was of high-quality from the start - this was not going going be one of those break festivals; nothing classic about those - and Henin played a marvelous game to break Wozniacki for 6-5 in the first set, capping the game with one of the numerous forehand winners she hit today.
Henin had been attacking the ball with great verve, but she appeared to get so wrapped up in the sheer joy of it that she pushed the envelope so far that it tore. Serving for the set, Henin began pulling the trigger a little early, and with a little too much enthusiasm; she fell out of rhythm and Wozniacki broke her. In the meat of the ensuing tiebreaker, a pair of forehand errors left Henin down, 2-4, and Wozniacki capitalized; she then ran the score up to 6-2. Although Henin clawed back to 5-6, she lost the tiebreaker - and you had to wonder if she'd ratcheted up the aggression to the point where she could no longer control it.
Henin struggled thereafter (she took a time-out for treatment on her back early in the second set), but she did what few WTA players seem capable of these days; she hung in there and paid attention to the details, took care of her serve, made her opponent work for everything with the duckbill of her cap pulled down low to her brows.
But both women played boldly. Given the fearless way Henin assaulted the ball, Wozniacki's ability to overcome a love-40 deficit in the sixth game of the second set to hold (she reeled off five straight points) was less a comment on chances not taken by Henin than on the nerve and skill of the 19-year old Wozniacki.
Henin ultimately managed a break for 5-3, and she served out the second set. She broke Wozniacki again in the third game of the final set, but the subsequent games remained compelling. Wozniacki appeared to tire, but she didn't give ground, mentally. Henin won it with no further breaks, 6-7, 6-4, 6-4.
Over the course of the match, Henin struck a nearly perfect balance between winners and errors: 53 to 51, respectively. The high number of errors worried her not in the least. As she said in the press room afterward: "A lot of balls were coming back in the court, you know. She (Wozniacki) didn't do a lot mistakes and pushed me to, you know, do everything at some point. That wasn't that easy. I didn't have two balls in a row that were the same rhythm."
While we're on statistics: Henin hit 27 winners with her forehand, and six with her backhand. It's funny, but as much as people ooh-and-aah over that backhand, it involves a lot of moving parts and no small degree of the unconventional - does anyone else hit off the back foot, even from the baseline, more frequently than Henin? Does any woman with a comparable one-hander take so long to load up and finish with so conspicuous a flourish? It takes time to set up and break down that stroke when the show is over, and while time is not of the essence in the red clay capitals, a lot of tennis is played on faster surfaces where set-up and recovery are more critical issues.
For my money, Henin's forehand - certainly the way she tagged it today - is a more trustworthy if less sexy tool. I guess we love Henin's backhand the way we appreciate baroque architecture, but we can admire her forehand the way we like Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture. It makes sense, in a way. The baroque always implies striving, the yearning for beauty and perfection. It warms our hearts, even though it can seem excessive. More modern trends gravitate toward utility and simplicity - that famous marriage of form and function - and if they're not nearly as inspiring, they more often get us through the day.
However, having the baroque to the port and the functional to the starboard isn't a bad way to go, and when I asked Henin about it she was more than happy to elaborate: "Well, my backhand is the most natural shot, I would say, so that's why a lot of people are talking about my backhand. But in the last few years, even in my first career, I think my forehand really gave me the winners.
"I can build the point with my backhand, but I hit the winners more with my forehand.. .I've worked very hard on my serve and forehand. That's because it's been something sometimes difficult in the past. My backhand, sometimes I'm getting lazy on it, because I don't work as much on it. But it still gives me, I mean, a few points."
Of course, sometimes beauty and function dovetail nicely, as they did when Henin wiped out a break point at 3-all in the second set with a signature backhand down the line. You could hear the crisp pop of the ball clear up the cheap seats.
It was, like the diminutive lady who delivered it, an absolute classic.