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Does size really matter? - Page 2

© Michael Cecilio

What’s more, her game doesn’t seem to have any apparent weaknesses. The strength of her game will always be in her groundstrokes, the power, accuracy and the ability to change things up with different spins and directions. However her serve packs a mighty punch too, averaging over 105 mph on her first serve throughout Wimbledon – a statistic even the bigger girls could be satisfied with. Her mobility and athleticism have never been in question, nor has her net game. She has the heart, determination, grit and the fight to tough it out with the best of them. Where can she go wrong?

Justine Henin is headed for a bright future, if the present is not already satisfying enough. This year has been her breakthrough as she accumulated a 14 match winning streak at the beginning of the year, winning titles in Gold Coast and Canberra and reaching the fourth round of the Australian Open before losing a mighty three set thriller to Monica Seles. This year, she has taken the scalps of the two best players in the world this year, Venus Williams (at Berlin) and Jennifer Capriati (at Wimbledon). She reached her first Grand Slam semi final at Roland Garros and backed it up with an amazing run to the finals of Wimbledon just recently. All this adds up to a tidy ranking of #5 in the world, a mighty achievement considering that exactly one year ago, she was #87. The rise has been meteoric and the follow-on success will increase exponentially.

What can go wrong? Not much it seems. Justine has the ability to hang with the biggest of power hitters, despite her size, because of her technique. Technically, she is almost perfect as she throws as much of her bodyweight as is possible into every single shot she hits. Her forehand, backhand and her serve belie her size because she throws every single bit of her height and weight into those shots. Her ability to mix her game up with variety means that she has several back-up plans should her A-game fall apart (which, similarly to the typical power hitters, is to be aggressive with the groundstrokes and to overpower the opponent from the baseline). The only thing which could be seen as not up to par with the rest of her game is the mental aspect. That is not to say that she is mentally weak as it takes a certain amount of strength to make it to the Top 5 in tennis and to reach a Grand Slam final. However, improvements can certainly be made. Three losses spring to mind from this year when she lost matches which were under her control until either a mental lapse and/or an inability to close out tight situations. Her loss to Monica Seles at the Australian Open was significant as she was up a set and 4-2 before squandering the second set. Again, she was up 4-2 in the third set before squandering the match. Against Kim Clijsters in Indian Wells, she was up a set and a break before losing 1-6 6-4 6-3. Once again, Kim was her nemesis at the French Open semi finals where she was up 6-2 4-2, only to lose 2-6 7-5 6-3. She herself admitted as much after the Wimbledon finals that she could be mentally tougher in the crux situations. But one would think that is to come with greater experience on the tour. Despite the fact that she is one of the 5 best players in the world, she is still relatively new to the whole ball game that is professional tennis. Undoubtedly, the tournament win in s’Hertogenbosch over Clijsters and the comeback win over Capriati in the Wimbledon semi finals did much to move her in the right direction mentally, helping her eliminate her demons from the past and giving her the confidence and self-belief that is necessary to succeed on the grandest stage.

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