{"id":25765,"date":"2020-06-10T08:00:04","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T12:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordontennis.com\/?p=25765"},"modified":"2020-06-10T00:05:25","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T04:05:25","slug":"the-french-open-dominance-of-justine-henin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2020\/06\/10\/the-french-open-dominance-of-justine-henin\/","title":{"rendered":"The French Open dominance of Justine Henin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If Rafael Nadal is known as the &#8216;King of Clay&#8217; then, for a period in the mid 2000s, Justine Henin was almost certainly the Queen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She won three straight titles from 2005, the only person to achieve that feat apart from Monica Seles in 1992.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><strong>French Open 2005<\/strong><\/h1>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/524242424\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 69.52862% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/524242424?et=8Py16sqlS4NiioM2HMIwIg&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=X8GJd69CsfStOfg4F65-Qd2ZDbxqPQlkf-wdGnxlH9s=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"413\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Belgian star came into the 2005 French Open without many matches under her belt due a fractured kneecap delaying her return from a series of niggling injuries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She eventually made her comeback in March after six months out but the few matches she had played showed her layoff had not affected her, winning three clay tournaments claiming victories over Maria Sharapova, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lindsay Davenport and Svetlana Kuznetsova.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before her injury, Henin had been world No. 1 and was a Grand Slam champion after her triumph in Paris two years previously.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She had added an Olympic Gold months before in Athens but had lost time to make up for at Roland Garros after her shock second round loss to <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tathiana Garbin<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the year before.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After coming from a set down to battle past Anabel Medina Garrigues she met Kuznetsova in the fourth round where she won the deciding set 7-5.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She then faced Sharapova, the second seed but outclassed her in straight sets and she reached the final after defeating Nadia Petrova, who had knocked her out of the US Open.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Surprisingly she would meet Mary Pierce, the 21st seed, who had stunned top-ranked Lindsay Davenport in 6-3, 6-2 in the quarter-finals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With neither player having dropped a set since the fourth round, a close encounter was expected but the Belgian thrashed her French counterpart for the loss of just two games to seal her second Slam.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><strong>French Open 2006<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By the time the 2006 French Open came around, Henin had risen to fifth in the world but had to pull out of her Australian Open final against Amelie Mauresmo through injury.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/71171160\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 61.11111% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/71171160?et=M4lepsPVRWthVIeOTyK4vw&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=KDC2DpNzkwamBDGaXuZ50xipnDbhqnfEhxB3Bm5wTqI=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"363\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She eased through to the quarter-finals without dropping a set, including a 6-4, 6-0 thrashing of Garbin in the third round.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Her run continued with a win over <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anna-Lena Gr\u00f6nefeld<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to set up an-all Belgian semi-final with Kim <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clijsters<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> whom she had beaten in the 2003 final.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This encounter was another comfortable win for Henin, this time 6-3, 6-2, as she looked to defend her title.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The final saw her meet eighth seed Kuznetsova, and the Belgian star became the first person to defend their French Open title since Steffi Graff in 1996.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The remainder of the year saw Henin reach at third consecutive Slam final without dropping a set, at Wimbledon but lost to Mauresmo.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She then became the woman since Martina Hingis in 1997 to reach the finals of all four Grand Slam singles tournaments in a calendar year when she reached the US Open final but she lost to Maria Sharapova.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However she would later beat the Russian and Mauresmo to win the year-end championships for the first time.<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><strong>French Open 2007<\/strong><\/h1>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/98051851\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 68.013466% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/98051851?et=j-GlgtprTvJ_Q-zJzHgpew&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=1MzK9EFN8STHJ00eacAUSA57fEvYtkOpazt3vVnFNVA=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"404\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite not competing in the first Slam of 2007 in Australia due to the break-up of her <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">marriage, Henin regained the No. 1 ranking ahead of the French Open.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As expected she coasted through to a quarter-final against Serena Williams without losing a set and produced an accomplished performance to beat the eighth seed 6-4, 6-3.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She then faced Serbian fourth seed Jelena Jankovic in the last four and dispatched her with ease for the loss of just four games.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A third successive final at Roland Garros saw her pitted against Jankovic\u2019s compariot Ana Ivanovic who was in her first Slam final but had already beaten third seed Svetlana Kuzneztova and second seed Maria Sharapova.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Henin was on a mission though and eased past the 20-year-old 6-1, 6-2 to equal Monica Seles&#8217; record of three successive titles.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unexpectedly, Henin retired the following year citing injuries, returning in 2010 but she failed to add to her seven Grand Slams before finally quitting the next year after injuries resurfaced.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/71171201\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 63.299664% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/71171201?et=Tq4MIyLiQ0dkUMFp1eVYeQ&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=qJMECYKw_pYNV5_U2q75J7CHph3EA86_zry8C_XvOVQ=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"376\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If Rafael Nadal is known as the &#8216;King of Clay&#8217; then, for a period in the mid 2000s, Justine Henin was almost certainly the Queen.\u00a0 She won three straight titles from 2005, the only person to achieve that feat apart from Monica Seles in 1992.\u00a0 French Open 2005 Embed from Getty Images The Belgian star [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2910,"featured_media":25873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1735,2,4],"tags":[11476,11477,11478,14,11474,204,11164,11475,11470,896,179,799,15],"class_list":["post-25765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-french-open","category-all-time-best","category-featured","category-wta","tag-2005-french-open","tag-2006-french-open","tag-2007-french-open","tag-ana-ivanovic","tag-belgian-tennis","tag-french-open","tag-justine-henin","tag-justine-henin-french-open","tag-mary-pierce","tag-roland-garros","tag-svetlana-kuznetsova","tag-tennis-history","tag-wta"],"modified_by":"Steen Kirby","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2910"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}