By Mike McIntyre
A shocking development in the WTA has just broken with the word that world number one, Justine Henin has just announced her retirement from professional tennis today. This is a big blow to Belgian tennis, having already lost Kim Clijsters to retirement a year ago.
Henin, a permanent top ten fixture in the 21st century, has struggled as of late in comparison with her usual standard of brilliance. Still, at twenty five years of age she is still certainly in her physical prime with many more accomplishments to come. No word yet on the reason for her retirement, but one can surmise that nagging injuries, the vigorous tour schedule and perhaps a lack of confidence and/or motivation all played a part in this decision. In the past year Henin had hinted at other aspirations.
“I’m young in life but starting to get old on the tour. I’m growing up, and I need different things,” said Henin. “Now I’ve been playing tennis for 20 years and it’s been my whole life but…you need to think about the future.”
Henin was coming off her strongest year on the tour in 2007, where she went 63-4 and won two grand slams as well. So far in 2008, she has gone 16-4 with two titles to her credit. An Olympic champion, Henin also has taken three of the four grand slams in her career, with only Wimbledon missing from her repertoire. With Wimbledon just over a month away, one would think that Henin would want to take one last crack at it before making such a decision. She had made the final in 2006 and semi final a year ago, so she was definitely in the hunt. Not having that final slam will undoubtedly be taken into consideration when comparing her against some of the greatest female tennis players of all time. And yet Henin had the following to say about failing to reach the title at Wimbledon.
“Winning Wimbledon would not make me happier than I am,” she said. “I could never dream of Wimbledon. It was destiny. I didn’t feel myself capable. It was too much for me.”
In her retirement press conference today, Henin also acknowledged that she had been contemplating retirement seriously since late last year.
“I thought long about this,” Henin said, her voice cracking and eyes watering. “I started thinking about it late last year. I was at the end of the road. I leave with my head held high.”
WTA CEO Larry Scott had the following words in response to the retirement announcement.
“Justine Henin will be remembered as one of the all-time great champions in women’s tennis, and a woman who made up for her lack of size with a will to win and fighting spirit that was second to none,” Scott said. “It is rare that an athlete leaves at the very top of her game in this day and age, but Justine has always played by her own rules, in the very best sense of those words.”
Tennis will never be the same again!
Posted by: 1ted | May 14, 2008 at 12:33 PM