Justine Henin's path back to tennis

By JOCELYN GECKER
Associated Press Sports


MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -Justine Henin's travels through Congo and Cambodia didn't begin as a spiritual journey but ultimately set her on the path back to tennis.

Now that she has returned, Henin says she recalls images of those travels daily: the African baby who took her hand and wouldn't let go, the Congolese girl who pleaded, "Take me back with you to Belgium," the children who delighted at seeing their faces in her digital camera.

At 27, Henin speaks of her life as having a before and an after.

Her "first career" was what came before May 2008, when the seven-time Grand Slam winner jolted the tennis world by retiring while ranked No. 1.

And there's her "second career," which is off to a stunning start.

Henin advanced to the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, her second tournament out of retirement. She mesmerized the crowds with her sublime one-handed backhand - which John McEnroe has ranked among the best shots in the game - her amazing speed and endless determination.

There is little doubt, that she has a renewed passion for the sport, which she started as a child prodigy but was slowly suffocating her.

"I had so much inside me that I couldn't express because there was my tennis, and it took everything. It took everything out of me. I didn't know myself enough anymore," Henin said in an interview Monday on the eve of her quarterfinal against Russia's Nadia Petrova.

"I'm so happy that I stopped playing tennis two years ago," Henin said. "For me, these two years were the richest years in my existence, because I think it marked my passage to adulthood."

Indeed, Henin has changed and matured. She was always introspective and spoke from her heart but was also guarded and tense. She once described herself as "the oldest 24-year-old on the planet."

"Now I feel like a young 27," said Henin, who now offers eloquent self-analysis and is much quicker to smile.

Seated in the player's lounge at Melbourne Park, Henin spoke passionately in her native French about her work abroad as a UNICEF ambassador and other projects at home that included a reality TV show called, "The 12 Labors of Justine Henin," in which she undertook a different challenge for each episode.

"What interested me was the aspect of the challenge," she said. "It was to do things, nobody thought I could do. I did comedy, I sang, I played football with star Belgian football players."

"It's a paradox. I'm very timid and very reserved, but I chose a career that puts me in the spotlight," she laughed. "So there must be a part of me that needs that. It's about finding equilibrium."

Henin spent a week in war-ravaged eastern Congo last January with UNICEF and a week in rural Cambodia in August for a vaccination campaign for mothers and babies.

In Congo, she showered with cold water and had to abide by a 10 p.m. curfew for security reasons.

Nobody knew her there, and she loved the anonymity.

She visited camps where child soldiers waited to find their families, she observed treatment of malnourished children and met victims of violent rape. She was startled to see the shattered lives of 28,000 people in a refugee camp where "the hygiene was catastrophic."

"One day I was in the car driving back to the hotel and I missed home very much. I felt like I was on another planet, and I sat there crying," Henin said. "It was the strongest thing I have ever lived, this encounter with misery and difficulty but also with dignity - because these people remained so dignified. The children were still smiling. The women were so courageous."

"I don't think I ever experienced anything more important, anything that marked me like that in the past," she added. "And it allowed me to get my feet back on the ground, to confront very difficult, very complicated things."

Henin lost her mother to cancer at the age of 12. She dedicated her first French Open title in 2003 to her mother, who had brought a 10-year-old Justine to Roland Garros to watch a tennis match in person for the first time.

She went on to win the French Open three more times, the U.S. Open twice and the Australian Open in 2004. But she endured injuries and, in 2007, the end of her five-year marriage. After years of being estranged from her father and siblings, she reunited with her family in 2008.

When Henin quit tennis, it was a clean break. She says she didn't pick up a racket for more than a year and didn't watch any tennis on TV for months.

Slowly, the spark returned. She realized she missed tennis and competing and that happiness could coexist with tennis.

She has said she was inspired by Roger Federer's triumph at last year's French Open. Like Henin, the Swiss star needed one more title to complete his Grand Slam collection. In Henin's case, it is Wimbledon.

"Of course, it would be a dream come true to win all the Grand Slams," said Henin, who has demonstrated new aggressiveness at the net that she says is what she needs to improve her game on grass. "But I'm just going step by step, it's still early."

She was also inspired by the comeback of fellow Belgian Kim Clijsters, who returned after two years off to get married and have a baby and won last year's U.S. Open.

Clijsters was upset in the third round in Melbourne by Petrova, who will now face Henin in the quarterfinals.

Petrova and many other players have applauded Henin's return, saying she and Clijsters have reinvigorated women's tennis.

"She was too young to retire," said Petrova. "She realized there is still a lot of unfinished business."