Henin, the great survivor

Henin has unfinished business. That is just one reason why her comeback feels more comfortable and genuine than those of Armstrong and Schumi

Sporting comebacks, often, are like breakfasting on the dregs of last night's champagne. The taste is still more or less the same but the fizz has mostly gone.


Justine Henin fans go crazy as the Belgian battles to a win over Russia's
Alisa Kleybanova at the Australian Open in Melbourne yesterday. PIC/AFP

But Justine Henin is looking very promising as an exception to the loose rule that sports people, once they retire, are often best advised to stay that way.

Her comeback tastes as right as much as her shock departure from tennis in 2008 seemed wrong. Going back to the champagne analogy, her return to the women's tour that lost some of its sparkle when she walked away feels like being given a second bottle to uncork after emptying a first that proved exceedingly drinkable.

Seeing her back on court and playing so well -- she advanced yesterday to the last 16 at the Australian Open -- offers the prospect of 2010 being a vintage year, after a few non-vintage ones, for the women's game.
What a joy to see that sublime backhand of hers again.

Henin has unfinished tennis business. That is just one reason why her comeback feels more comfortable and genuine than those of Lance Armstrong and Michael Schumacher. Their return to competition cannot significantly add to the giant marks they made on their sports.

Big records
Given that they both already hold the big records -- seven consecutive Tour de France victories for Armstrong and seven Formula One world championships for Schumacher -- more wins for either of them this year would only tell us what we already know: that they are the best of their generation.

The same might have been said of Henin had she not abandoned tennis just 11 days before she was due to defend her title at the 2008 French Open.u00a0 Hers was a brutal departure, far harder to understand than the reasons now bringing her back. One minute, she was world No 1, with seven majors. The next, she was gone.

Making it perfectly clear that she was done for good, Henin asked that she be wiped from the WTA rankings.u00a0 Without her, women's tennis wobbled like a chair missing a leg. No single player filled the void that her retirement created. Serena Williams, almost by default, proved the strongest among those Henin left behind, winning another US Open, Australian Open and Wimbledon title to take her tally of majors to 11.

Henin, meanwhile, went in search of herself, trying to answer the question: without tennis, who was she? She dabbled in television, fashion, music and cooking. She worked for UNICEF, loving that women and children she met on a mission to war- and poverty-scarred eastern Congo didn't know who she was. She fixed her tired body, getting surgery on a knee, and tasted real life after "living in this bubble for all these years."

And she insisted that she wouldn't play again. "No, no," she said. "I don't need the competition anymore to be happy." Yet, at the very same time, the seeds of her return were being planted. Seeing Federer win that French, the only major missing from his resume, got her thinking about the only one missing from hers -- Wimbledon. It "titillated a part of me which I thought was extinguished," she said. -- AP

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