6/6/2001
Women's Semi Final preview: A Belgian Fairytale
by Nyree Epplett
The unlikely semi final match-up between No12 seed Kim Clijsters and No14 seed Justine Henin means that for the first time in professional tennis history, Belgium will have a player in a Grand Slam final.
That's big news in the tiny country of Belgium. So big that the Belgian royal family travelled to Roland Garros to witness both players' quarter finals victories on Tuesday. Hundreds of colorful Belgian fans have made the pilgrimage via train to Paris, too. No question about it, this fortnight, madams Henin and Clijsters have rivalled Belgian beer and chocolate as their country's most famous exports.
And although the two players in the opposing semi final - Martina Hingis and Jennifer Capriati - are the elder stateswomen of Grand Slam tennis, Henin and Clijsters are third-year Grand Slam apprentices, neither having progressed past the fourth round before this tournament.
The 19-year-old Henin and the 17-year-old Clijsters have both travelled a similar path to tennis stardom. Both debuted at the same tournament - '99 Antwerp - which Henin won. Clijsters reached the quarter finals, where she held match point on eventual finalist Sarah Pitkowski.
Henin has arrived at the semi final care of five consecutive straight sets wins, an outstanding performance which belies the fact that this is just her second run on the red dirt. As a sign of things to come and on debut here in 1999, she reached the second round as a qualifier, extending No2 seed Lindsay Davenport to 7-5 in the final set. Since turning pro that same year, she's climbed inside the top 20 and has bagged three singles titles.
Now Henin, who is in possession of arguably the best one-handed backhand on the women's tour, stands two wins away from a Grand Slam victory and is relishing the opportunity.
"It's the French Open. It's the biggest tournament for me in the year. Now I want to go further. I want to find all the resources available for me to go further," said Henin, who watched Monica Seles win here in '92 and promised her now deceased mother that she would play on Court Philippe Chatrier too some day.
"She always believed in me," Henin said of her mother. "Unfortunately she died to early. I know she's quite aware of what I'm doing now. She knew my ambitions. She knew my character. She knew that I really wanted to win and she was convinced I would succeed.
"Not long ago I had the feeling that all these victories were still very far away. Now, once I'm in the tournament, I feel very good. I didn't think I would go all the way to a semi final. It may seem like a dream but for me it's quite real."
Henin's record against her 17-year-old semi final opponent and close pal is an admirable one. She has beaten Clijsters in two out of their three encounters, but the last victory came two years ago. Clijsters triumphed on the hard courts of Indian Wells earlier this year, in three hard fought sets, 1-6 6-4 6-3.
Come Thursday though, the hard-hitting pair will put their friendship aside for what promises to be a serious slugfest. "I think that Kim is a nice girl, a great girl. We speak about everything, but not of tennis. And it's so good for a little country like Belgium to have two people like us," said Henin. "We are close friends outside the court. But this is the semis and I will do my best to win this match. So when we are on the court, I have to beat everybody."
Clijsters agrees. "We're tennis players and rivals at the same time. I think it's very important that you can make the difference on the court, and once you get off the court you're friends again. I think I can do that pretty good. I think I'll do that Thursday, forget about who I'm playing against."
The daughter of a famous Belgian soccer player and girlfriend of Aussie Lleyton Hewitt, Clijsters won the junior Roland Garros doubles title in 1998. She burst onto the world tennis scene in 1999, catching our attention when she lost a three set thriller to eventual champion Serena Williams at the 1999 U.S. Open. At 16 years, two months, Clijsters was the youngest player in the draw. By the end of that year, she'd captured her first singles title (as a qualifier she won Luxembourg) and risen from No409 to No47 in the rankings.
Clijsters won another two titles in 2000, and debuted at Roland Garros where she lost in the first round. This year she has beaten world No1 Martina Hingis for the first time in four attempts and moved through to the fourth round at the Australian Open.
"I think it's great for Belgian tennis. I mean, I think it's perfect. We're both new, up-and-coming players. It's great for women's tennis, not only Belgian tennis," Clijsters said.
~Clijsters City
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