Justine Henin was born June 1, 1982 in Liège. She is a Belgian professional tennis player.
She is currently ranked World No. 1. She has won 41 WTA singles titles and more than U.S.$19 million in prize money. Seven of those
titles were Grand Slam singles titles, including four French Open titles (four of the last five and the last three, consecutively), one Australian Open title, and two U.S. Open titles. She also has won the WTA Tour Championships twice and the singles gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Tennis experts cite her mental toughness, the completeness and variety of her game, her footspeed and footwork, and her one-handed backhand (which John McEnroe has described as the best single-handed backhand in the women’s or men’s game) as the principal reasons for her success.
Henin has a very aggressive, yet highly versatile, all-court playing style and can hit all the fundamental shots to an extremely high level of technical proficiency. Henin plays with a rare combination of power and finesse that allows for her success on all surfaces. Consequently, Henin’s playing style is one of the most admired in tennis: John McEnroe has described Henin’s tennis as “Federertennis”, frequently describing Henin as ‘the Roger Federer of women’s tennis’ (BBC commentaries and studio interviews, Wimbledon 2005, 2006, 2007). At Roland Garros 2007, Martina Navratilova said that “Henin’s offense is just phenomenal… it’s sort of like we’ve got ‘the female Federer’, or maybe the guys have ‘the male Justine Henin’, because she is just head and shoulders above everyone else right now” (interview with Barbara Schett, Eurosport, 7th June 2007).
Henin’s single-handed backhand, now rare in both men’s and women’s tennis, is one of the most powerful and accurate in the game (Henin frequently records higher speeds off her single-handed backhand than many of leading players’ DHB speeds). Henin can hit both ‘flat’, topspin and slice variation off this wing and can strike winners from any part of the court. Her backhand can also be also disguised, surprising her opponents with dropshots. Her slice backhand is one of the best in the world. However, Henin’s forehand remains her most dangerous weapon, and the stroke that she normally uses to dictate the play of a match. Along with Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Ana Ivanović, Henin consistently records the most ‘winner heavy’ stats of all the top 20 ranked players, the majority of her winners typically being forehand groundstroke winners. In each of her last three matches at the US Open, Henin hit substantially more winners than each of her opponents: quarter-final versus Serena Williams, 30 - 17; semi-final versus Venus Williams 29 - 26; final versus Svetlana Kuznetsova, 25 - 11. Despite her relatively small size, Henin has an extremely powerful serve, which has been measured at a top speed of 200 km/h (124 mph) [2005 Charleston]. Her average first serve speed in the 2007 US Open semi-final [first set] was 172 km/h (107 mph) - the same as her opponent, Venus Williams (18 cm (seven inches) taller), who holds the world record for the fastest serve in a main draw Tour (or Grand Slam) event. Henin’s serve frequently features in the top 10 of the ‘Women’s Serve Speed Leaders’ list, produced at every Grand Slam event throughout the year.
Henin’s footwork, balance, and court coverage are exceptional - most notably on clay - and she is adept at changing from a defensive style to an aggressive one. Henin has always had good to exceptional volleying skills, and has used serve-and-volley play with more frequency in recent seasons. Justine Henin was born on June 1, 1982. Her father is José Henin; her mother, Françoise Rosière, was a French and history teacher who died when Justine was 12 years old. She has two brothers (David and Thomas), and a sister (Sarah). She also had an elder sister who was killed in a car accident before Justine was born. When Justine was two, her family moved to a house in Rochefort, situated next to the local tennis club, where she played tennis for the first time. At age six, Henin joined Tennis Club Ciney where her coaches discovered her talent immediately. She outclassed the other children in training sessions and was notably ambitious. Henin’s mother routinely took the young Henin across the border to France to watch the French Open. Henin saw the 1992 final involving her idol Steffi Graf and Monica Seles. Although Graf lost, the experience impressed Henin, who apparently told her mother, “One day I will play here and I will win.”
In 1995, shortly after her mother’s death, Henin met her coach Carlos Rodriguez who has guided her career ever since. Following a conflict between Justine and her father over her tennis career and her relationship with Pierre-Yves Hardenne, Rodriguez soon became not only her trainer but in some ways a second father figure. On November 16, 2002, Henin married Pierre-Yves in the Château de Lavaux-Sainte-Anne. On January 4, 2007, Henin withdrew from the upcoming tournaments in Australia, including the Australian Open, due to personal problems. Various news agencies reported that she intended to divorce. She has since confirmed on her official website that she has separated from her husband and she also resumed her maiden name, Justine Henin, instead of Justine Henin-Hardenne. Her divorce and the serious car accident of her eldest brother helped to clear the path for Justine to make contact again with her close family (which she communicated very openly to the local press). During the 2007 French Open, her brothers and sister attended her matches for the first time in her professional career.
On November 30, 2007, the Belgian launched her own tennis academy “Club Justine N1″ (in French, “N1″ is pronounced almost exactly the same as “Henin”).