2011 Hopman Cup: Review Session 1 – Justine Henin vs. Alicia Molik
The International Tennis Federation’s (ITF) version of the Davis Cup and the Fed Cup, the Hopman Cup, commenced on the 1st of January with eight teams competing at the event, which is played in Perth, Australia. Each
team, made up of one male and one female tennis player, competes under the banner of their countries.
Divided into two groups, the teams follow a round robin format before the top two teams make it to the semi finals. In each session of the event, two singles matches and one mixed doubles match is played. Kicking off the event
on New Year’s Day was the Australian team of Lleyton Hewitt and Alicia Molik taking on the third seeded Belgian team of Justine Henin and Ruben Bemelmans.
The first session of the event started with Henin playing Molik in a women’s single match. A former top ten, Molik returned to tour level in 2010 after coming back from a yearlong retirement in 2009. She finished the year ranked
90 in the world with no title wins. This is Molik’s sixth participation at the event having represented her country in 2003-05 and then in 2007-08.
As opposed to Molik, Henin finished the year ranked 12th in the world despite coming back from retirement in the beginning of the year. She ended the year with two titles under her belt winning them at Porsche Tennis
Grand Prix and at the 2010 UNICEF Open along with final appearances at Brisbane and Australian Open. Her 2010 season ended prematurely after she slipped and suffered a partial ligament fracture in her elbow during her fourth round match at 2010 Wimbledon with
compatriot Kim Clijsters.
Henin’s singles match with Molik on Saturday was her first after recovering from the fracture. Although Molik enjoyed the home court advantage, the disparity in their rankings had much more effect on the outcome of the game. In
a match that lasted for almost 90 minutes, Henin served three aces with four double faults to secure a twin set score victory of 6-4, 6-4 over the local.
Delighted over her victory against Molik after recovering from the elbow injury, Henin said, "It's my first match in a few months and I'm coming back from nowhere with the elbow injury so at least it wasn’t an easy opponent to
play first. She changed the rhythm a lot and on my serve I have had to work very hard to try and serve with no pain. It's feeling much better and I won, which is the most important thing. I still can't play 100 per cent free of pain, but it's getting better.
A few weeks ago I really didn’t know if I was going to be able to play in Australia and I've been working so hard, and I'm glad that I'm almost there. Now I have to build my confidence back and find the rhythm of matches again."
This was Henin’s sixth straight career victory over Molik having enjoyed wins over the Aussie at Wimbledon, at the US Open, at the Fed Cup, at Miami and at Doha. Henin will next play Yaroslava Shvedova on Tuesday when Kazakhstan
plays Belgium while Molik’s next encounter will be with Ana Ivanovic for Serbia versus Australia.
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