Tennis: Henin Bids for Five

Given the power with which modern women players hit the ball, courtesy of racket technology and improved fitness regimes, it seems unlikely that anybody will ever match the number of majors won by Margaret Court (24) and Steffi Graf (22) or even Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova (both 18).

Indeed it is possible that the dozen won by Billie Jean King may not be surpassed, although this view is perhaps overly coloured by the current state of the game, where one or more of the leading players are invariably injured and Lindsay Davenport, the world No1, has not won a major since 2000.

Certainly Justine Henin-Hardenne, whose 6-1, 6-1 victory over Mary Pierce in the French Open final on Saturday gave her a fourth grand slam title, and her second at Roland Garros, would love to win many more. "Very deep inside of her she wants to do the same as the greats like Graf," said her coach and mentor Carlos Rodríguez, who has been with the Belgian since she was 14.

At this time last year there was a danger that Henin's career might fall apart because of a viral infection. She recovered enough to win the Olympic gold medal in Athens but after being defeated in the fourth round of the US Open was unable to play until this spring, largely because of her illness, although she also suffered a knee injury that forced her out of this year's Australian Open.

Since her comeback in March at the Nasdaq-100 in Key Biscayne, where she lost to Maria Sharapova in the quarter-finals, Henin has won 24 consecutive matches and four titles, all of them on clay. Small wonder that she has pulled out of the Eastbourne tournament. "What I did two years ago, playing so soon after winning the title here, was crazy. I have to be realistic."

This realism centres on the need to make sure she does not burn herself out, which was certainly the case last year after she had won her third grand slam title out of four at the Australian Open. "We are going to be more smart, because we know what happened and we don't want this any more in the future," Henin said. "I think it's been a very big lesson for all of us."

Henin's only moment of doubt here came against Svetlana Kuznetsova in the fourth round, when she had to save two match points in a match lasting more than three hours. "Justine scares me sometimes," said Rodríguez. "She was completely empty. She had no fuel but the machine continued to turn. That's very dangerous. I don't like it. But she won. She has something that only the champions have."

It turned out to be the diminutive Belgian's last test, for Sharapova, the world No2 whom she has now beaten twice on clay this year, could not cope with a player of Henin's quality on this surface. Neither could Nadia Petrova of Russia in the semis and poor Pierce collapsed in a wobbly heap in the final, the most one-sided since Graf beat Natasha Zvereva 6-0, 6-0 in 1988.

She had always been likely to lose to Henin, who is by far the better player. What obviously upset the French woman, winner of the title five years ago, was that she never remotely did herself justice. It was a poor final but won by the best women's clay-courter in the world.