Justine Henin Retires!
Our newest writer, Mike McIntyre, emailed us this morning with the news: Justine Henin has retired! As of now. Immediately. Mike will be joining us regularly in two weeks. Meanwhile, here are his comments about Justine.
A shocking development in the WTA has broken today with the word that world number one, Justine Henin has just announced her retirement from professional tennis today. This is a big blow to Belgian tennis, having already lost Kim Clijsters to retirement a year ago.
Henin, a permanent top ten fixture in the 21st century, has struggled as of late in comparison with her usual standard of brilliance. Still, at twenty five years of age she is still certainly in her physical prime with the potential of many more accomplishments to come. Initially there was no word on the reason for her retirement, but one can surmise that nagging injuries, the vigorous tour schedule and perhaps a lack of confidence and/or motivation all played a part in this decision. In the past year Henin had hinted at other aspirations.
“I’m young in life but starting to get old on the tour. I’m growing up, and I need different things,” said Henin. “Now I’ve been playing tennis for 20 years and it’s been my whole life but…you need to think about the future.”
Henin was coming off her strongest year on the tour in 2007, where she went 63-4 and won two grand slams as well. So far in 2008, she has gone 16-4 with two titles to her credit. An Olympic champion, Henin also has taken three of the four grand slams in her career, with only Wimbledon missing from her repertoire. With Wimbledon just over a month away, one would think that Henin would want to take one last crack at it before making such a decision. She had made the final in 2006 and semi final a year ago, so she was definitely in the hunt. Not having that final slam will undoubtedly be taken into consideration when comparing her against some of the greatest female tennis players of all time. And yet Henin had the following to say at her retirement press conference about failing to reach the title at Wimbledon.
“Winning Wimbledon would not make me happier than I am,” she said. “I could never dream of Wimbledon. It was destiny. I didn’t feel myself capable. It was too much for me.”
During the retirement press conference, Henin also acknowledged that she had been contemplating retirement seriously since late last year.
“I thought long about this,” Henin said, her voice cracking and eyes watering. “I started thinking about it late last year. I was at the end of the road. I leave with my head held high.”
WTA CEO Larry Scott had the following words in response to the retirement announcement.“Justine Henin will be remembered as one of the all-time great champions in women’s tennis, and a woman who made up for her lack of size with a will to win and fighting spirit that was second to none,” Scott said. “It is rare that an athlete leaves at the very top of her game in this day and age, but Justine has always played by her own rules, in the very best sense of those words.”
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6 Responses to “Justine Henin Retires!”
May 15th, 2008 at 2:33 am
It is sad to see Justine quit at such a young age. I hope she does not regret it in a few years time.
Justine was my favourite player currently on the tour. Although well behind my two all time favs Steffi Graf and Chris Evert.
May 15th, 2008 at 6:07 am
This is truly stunning news. She was the mighty mouse of the tour, and an improbable source of inspiration for many less physically gifted athletes. In an age where the mantra is “bigger, faster, stronger,” Henin proved that the analysts forgot about one quality - heart. She will be sorely missed.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Justine’s game was phenominal - her backhand a beauty! There’s no reason to watch women’s tennis now - yawn…………….
May 15th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
I’m shocked like everyone else. I find it hard to believe that she just up and retired. I’m even a bit suspicious that there might be more to the story because it was so sudden. My first thought was maybe she’s fallen in love. I may be in denial but I’m having a hard time accepting it.
May 15th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I think this might be part of a larger issue worth examining within the WTA tour. That is the burnout that female players in particular seem to suffer due to such a long time on the tour. As Justine herself has mentioned, she has been hitting tennis balls daily for the past twenty years. Not sure how much more I’d be able to give after so much time devoted to one discipline. Capriati, Kournikova, Hingis are the names that pop up when I think of careers that could have gone on longer, or more consistently but did not. Professional careers on the WTA seem to start at a much younger age with the phenoms than we see with the ATP tour. Maybe not enough support systems are in place for these youngsters to help them maintain a balance in their lives. Certainly something I’ll be examining further in my next post.
May 25th, 2008 at 3:01 am
It is truly sad that Henin retired, I think without her playing, the games are really going to be so boring, it makes me don’t even want to watch the tennis games. I seriously can’t even believe this!
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