Justine Henin

Justine Henin (born 1 June 1982) is a Belgian former world No. 1 tennis player.

In 1995, shortly after her mother's death, Henin met her coach Carlos Rodríguez who guided her career both before her retirement in 2008 and during her 2010 comeback.

Henin, known as "JuJu-german-rapper">JuJu" to many of her fans, was coached by Carlos Rodríguez of Argentina.

In 1997, she won the junior girls' singles title at the French Open.

Early in her senior career, she regularly reached the late rounds of international competitions and won five International Tennis Federation (ITF) tournaments by the end of 1998.

Junior Slam results:

She began her professional career on the Women's Tennis Association tour in May 1999 as a wild card entry in the Belgian Open clay tournament at Antwerp and became only the fifth player to win her debut WTA Tour event.

She also won her hometown event, the Liège Challenger, in July 2000.

Henin, coming from a country with limited success in tennis, helped establish Belgium as a leading force in women's tennis alongside Kim Clijsters, and led the country to its first Fed Cup crown in 2001.

She was known for her all-court style of play and for being one of the few female players to use a single-handed backhand.

At Wimbledon, she was the runner-up in 2001 and 2006.

Henin established herself as a major competitor in 2001, consequently reaching the women's singles semifinals of the French Open and then upset the reigning Australian Open and French Open champion Jennifer Capriati in the semifinals of Wimbledon, losing to defending champion Venus Williams in three sets in the final.

By the end of the year, Henin was ranked 7th in singles, with three titles to her name.

Also that year, she reached the French Open women's doubles semifinals with Elena Tatarkova and helped Belgium to win the 2001 Fed Cup.

Moreover, Henin played for the German tennis club Weiß-Blau Schweinfurt in 2001.

In 2002, she reached four WTA finals, winning two of them, and finished the year ranked world No. 5. Her German Open victory, her first win at a Tier I tournament, was noteworthy as she beat Jennifer Capriati in a semifinal and Serena Williams in the final, the then No. 2 and No. 5 ranked players, respectively.

At Wimbledon 2002, Henin beat former world No. 1, Monica Seles, in two tough sets.

Henin started the year as the 5th-ranked player in the world but lost to Kim Clijsters in the semifinals of the Medibank International in Sydney.

In the fourth round of the Australian Open in Melbourne, she defeated Lindsay Davenport 7–5, 5–7, 9–7.

In a match lasting more than three hours, Henin overcame a 4–1 final set deficit, high temperatures, and muscle cramps to defeat Davenport for the first time in her career.

She then lost to Venus Williams in the semifinals in straight sets.

Henin also lost to Clijsters in the semifinals of the Proximus Diamond Games in Antwerp.

At the Dubai Tennis Championships one week later, she defeated Monica Seles in the final 4–6, 7–6, 7–5 after Seles had a match point at 5–4 in the second set.

Henin's next tournament was the Tier I Miami Masters.

She lost in the quarterfinals to world No. 10, Chanda Rubin, 6–3, 6–2.

At the clay court Family Circle Cup in Charleston, South Carolina, Henin defeated world No. 1 Serena Williams in the final.

She spent a total of 117 weeks as the world No. 1 and was the year-end No. 1 in 2003, 2006 and 2007.

Henin won seven Grand Slam singles titles: the French Open in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007, the US Open in 2003 and 2007, and the Australian Open in 2004.

She also won a gold medal in the women's singles at the 2004 Olympic Games and won the year-ending WTA Tour Championships in 2006 and 2007.

In total, she won 43 WTA singles titles.

Tennis experts cite her mental toughness, the completeness and variety of her game, her footspeed and footwork, and her one-handed backhand (which John McEnroe described as "the best single-handed backhand in both the women's or men's game") as the principal reasons for her success.

She retired from professional tennis on 26 January 2011, due to a chronic elbow injury.

In June 2011, she was named one of the "30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present and Future" by Time.

She is widely considered one of the greatest female tennis players of all time.

In 2016, she became the first Belgian tennis player inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame and in 2023, the International Tennis Federation awarded Justine Henin its highest honor, the Philippe Chatrier Award.

Justine Henin, occasionally spelled Hénin, was born in Liège to José Henin and Françoise Rosière.

Rosière, a French and history teacher, died when Justine was 12 years old.

She has two brothers and a sister.

When she was two years old, Justine's family moved to a house in Rochefort, situated next to the local tennis club, where she played tennis for the first time.

Henin's mother routinely took the young Henin across the border to France to watch the French Open.