Henin’s Elbow Survives First Test

With temperatures cool enough for sweaters, it was an odd opening day for an Australian Open, the Grand Slam of the legionnaire’s cap and the extreme-heat policy, but there would have been chills running down Justine Henin’s spine no matter what the weather.

Henin has seldom been one to take life or tennis lightly, even when she has been on top of her game, and on Monday there were matters weightier than usual to ponder. How would she perform in her first official match in nearly seven months? How would her once-damaged right elbow handle the stress and Sania Mirza’s baseline power? “She was very, very nervous,” said Carlos Rodriguez, Henin’s longtime coach and touchstone. “She was thinking, Will I be the same?” The answer, at least on Monday, was no. There were too many unconvincing serves and off-balance groundstrokes, too many desperate defensive lunges, for this to qualify as vintage Henin, although there were plenty of classic sideways glances at Rodriguez. But the bright side for her in this tricky first-round match that started under ominous clouds and ended under a closed roof was that she ultimately found a way to shut down her fears and Mirza’s considerable weaponry and close out a 5-7, 6-3, 6-1 victory. “It’s not just in one week that you find everything,” Henin said, snapping her fingers. “But the passion is back. I know I came through difficult moments in the last few months, but now I’m here, and I’m very happy about that.” Tennis, ever more physical, has produced an assembly line’s worth of comeback tales in recent years, and Henin has certainly done her part. A seven-time Grand Slam singles champion ranked No. 1, she was just 25 years old when she retired abruptly in May 2008, citing burnout and a need to explore other aspects of life. She came back last January in Australia, losing in the final of the 2010 Australian Open to Serena Williams. Henin played on until Wimbledon, where she injured her right elbow during a fall in her fourth-round defeat against her Belgian compatriot Kim Clijsters. Her career, according to Rodriguez, was in jeopardy in August. “For about two to three weeks we didn’t know if she’d be able to continue or not,” he said late Monday night, after reviewing the Mirza match statistics and supervising Henin’s cool down on a stationary bicycle in the players’ gym. “That kind of uncertainty puts your ideas in order very quickly. I consider her a survivor, really.” Rodriguez said Henin had to wait three weeks after the injury for the swelling to subside in her forearm and elbow. He said that she then had to wait another three weeks to see if the elbow would be stable enough to play without surgery. The surgery, he said, would have put her out for about a year and a half, which he implied would have sent her back into retirement. But there would be no surgery, and Henin took the rest of the year off from competition before returning earlier this month at the Hopman Cup, the exhibition team event in Perth, and winning all four of her singles matches. But Hopman Cup pressure is not quite the same beast as Grand Slam pressure. “Not even close,” she said. “The last match I played was in a Grand Slam, and now I come back in a Grand Slam. There are surely situations that are easier than that. Hopman Cup was great in terms of the tennis, but in terms of the stress and the level of competition, it’s got nothing in common with this.” Henin still feels occasional pain in the elbow. “Today I did not think about it during the match, even if it’s there, and I know it limits me at certain moments and on certain shots,” she said. Henin, who won the title here in 2004, has experienced her share of trauma in Melbourne. She retired while trailing late in the match against Amélie Mauresmo in the 2006 final, citing stomach pain brought on by anti-inflammatory medication, and drew criticism for spoiling Mauresmo’s crowning moment. A first-round defeat on Monday would have been another downer. And there were long stretches of this deeply entertaining match in which it was difficult to remember who was the qualifier and who was the all-time great as Mirza, 24, jumped on Henin’s serves with aggressive returns and finished off baseline rallies with resounding, clean winners — never an easy task against someone who moves and anticipates as well as Henin. Mirza saved a set point before winning the first set and then nearly evened the second set at 4-all as Henin saved three break points. But then Mirza is not your average qualifier. Ranked 145th, she was once as high as 27 and reached the third round of the Australian Open twice and the fourth round at the United States Open. She remains a full-blown celebrity in India, and her marriage to Shoaib Malik, a cricket player from Pakistan, last April drew global attention for its cross-border implications. But Mirza, despite all the distractions, said she was still hungry to be a tennis player, and she still possesses the huge forehand that made her a factor in the first place. She has had her own injuries, with a chronic right wrist problem forcing her to scale back her schedule since 2008. “I think to me and to everyone else this match sends out the very big message as to where I stand now as a tennis player again,” Mirza said. “I struggled a lot with my wrist the last couple years. It’s been really tough dealing with all that, but I think good always comes out of bad. I got married because I was injured for five months. Probably we wouldn’t have had time if I was still playing.” Henin has had more than enough downtime between her retirement and this latest break, which she used to move into a new house in Brussels, to work at the tennis academies she founded with Rodriguez and to sing and dance for charity on Belgian television in October. Those who have seen the footage would probably concur that playing tennis for an excellent living seems a much better, if not necessarily safer, career option. “I tell her every day: ‘Enjoy yourself. Take advantage of this because you could have lost it all,’ ” Rodriguez said. There is indeed quite a difference between deciding to stop playing tennis, as she did in 2008, and being obliged to stop playing tennis. And now, elbow willing, Henin will get the chance to play Elena Baltacha of Britain in the second round. “The key is tomorrow morning, “ Rodriguez said. “The elbow can be O.K. today, but we’ll see tomorrow when she wakes up.” Henin sounded, for a change, less concerned. “I have an old elbow in the morning in any case,” she said. “That’s the way it is. I’m getting used to it. I know one day it will go away. I have to live with it for now.”

Posted by: Christopher Clarey