Former world number one Justine Henin retires from tennis; cites injury as reason for leaving
Former women’s world number one, Justine Henin, announced her retirement from professional tennis due to her elbow injury. She partly tore a ligament in her elbow during a match at Wimbledon and has not been able to fully recover
since then.
The last match she played was in the third round of the Australian Open, where she lost to Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova. Following the post-match press release, Henin announced her retirement from tennis.
“In these recent months I have rarely been spared of the pain,” she said, “the doctors told me my elbow is too fragile and therefore I cannot continue my profession at this high level.”
The 28 years old Belgian had announced her retirement in 2008 because of the same injury when she was reigning world number one. The winners of seven Grand Slam titles made a surprising comeback to tennis after 16 months break
at the WTA Tour in January 2010. Intensely talented Belgian rocketed her way to the final of the Australian Open on her return but her spirits were curtailed by the fractured elbow ligament during the Wimbledon.
Justine Henin won her first Grand Slam at the French Open in 2003 and then repeatedly won the same tournament from 2005 to 2007. Her other career Grand Slam triumphs include U.S. Open in 2003 and 2007, and the Australian Open in
2004.
Tennis experts enumerate her sheer mental perseverance and her variety of the game, stringed with her excellent footwork, to be the key characteristics of her success. Tennis legend John McEnroe praises her typical one-handed backhand
shot by reckoning it to be the best played by any one in the game.
Her long-time duels with fellow compatriot, Kim Clijsters, have been one of the greatest rivalries in the history of the game. Their bout initiated in 2003 when Henin lost to Clijsters in the semi-finals of Medibank International
in Sydney, and then again at Proximus Diamond Games in Antwerp. She backfired at the world number one Kim Clijsters in the final of the US Open and outplayed her opponent to win the Grand Slam. Her second Grand Slam capture for the year elevated her to the
second spot in world rankings and by the end of the year, she was on top of her tennis career, being rated as the world number one in women’s ranking.
The Belgian started off the next year with an emphatic win in the Australian Open final at Melbourne against her arch rival. However, she was not able to defend her French Open title that year and a couple of more major losses
made her drop from the top ranking, which she had held for 45 non-consecutive weeks.
Henin won three more Grand Slams in the next three years. She struggled to maintain her fitness and had a fracture in her knee during her was re-climb phase to the number one position.
Justine Henin announced her retirement from the international tennis on 14 May 2008, when she was reigning world number one in among women, and was hot favourite to win the French Open that year. She told that now her focus would
her tennis school.
Henin fans came to life on 22 September 2009, when the Belgian newspapers reported that former world number one Justine Henin will be playing professional tennis once more after a nap of 16 months. Justine told that the return
of Kim Clijsters to professional tennis after a retirement and Roger Federer completing his Career Grand Slam at the French Open were a real source of her inspiration and she finally decided to step back in the court.
Her return was enthusiastic but she did not manage to regain her dreamed top spot. Tennis’s all-time great player Billy Jean King honoured Henin in high words on her first retirement in 2008, saying “Justine is the best women's
athlete I've ever seen.”
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