Tennis Review: Henin vs. Kuznetsova

Justine Henin is unusual in women's tennis. She's about 5'6" which used to be more typical in tennis. Nowadays, you have Serena, who's like 5'10" and Venus, who's over 6 feet. Big, tall women now play tennis.

Justine, however, hits pretty hard, is very tough mentally, and is number one in the world. The problem with modern women's tennis today is that there's no Seles-Graf.

Back when Graf was number one, she became the dominant power much like Martina was dominant. Martina used to win matches in under an hour. No one could hit past her. She had a big serve. She volleyed amazingly. Chris Evert, who wasn't the same kind of athlete, found it hard to keep up. She tried to get in better shape, and could only match up against her at the French.

Graf then stormed on. She hit her forehand a ton, and would go for the lines. She hit so much harder than any woman that few could keep up. It took a while for other players to heat up their groundstrokes to even compete against Steffi. And the first real person to compete was Monica Seles.

Seles wasn't the same kind of athlete that Graf was. However, she moved well enough, and with two hands on both sides, she could hit the ball hard on both sides. One time, during the middle of a tough French Open final against Graf, Seles broke her strings. Usually, you lose complete control at that point, and a player will cut the point short and get a new racquet.

Seles managed to play another ten shots, and while she (I think) lost the rally, she still played amazing shots afterwards.

And the matches these two played were amazing that one really despises and out-of-work Graf fanatic that stabbed Seles, and let her out of action for nearly two years. Seles was never the same after that. She got to the finals of the US Open nearly right away, and lost to Graf. It wasn't quite the same after that.

But the matches were built on great shot after great shot, and women's tennis has often struggled to get to that stage. As much as Federer dominates the players he plays, there's a sense that they are trying, that they aren't just making errors, but that Federer is hitting great shots.

So that lead to last night's match. You generally know what you're going to get with Justine. She hits hard, both forehand and backhand. Indeed, her power off the backhand makes it tough to beat her, because you try to power it to her backhand, and she does it back to you. And for a woman her height, she serves pretty hard.

Indeed, it's amazing to see the women hitting 115 mph serves. At his best, McEnroe only flirted with that kind of speed usually hitting just under 110 mph. Not that speed is everything. McEnroe used his lefty spin and accuracy and that made it challenging for his opponents. Even so, women during that era served under 100 mph. Martina routinely served in the mid 90s.

And that was hard for a woman.

Kutznetsova, on the other hand, is this completely streaky player. She managed to play a semis where she played awful in the first set, and her opponent, Chakvetadze also imploded. And Kutznetsova is like number 4 in the world.

But she struggled plenty in the final. Even when she had chances to break, Henin would hit another good shot, or Svetlana would dump another shot into the net or out wide and shriek with every miss.

There was an odd moment during the match. Billie Jean King is asked about Svetlana, and she says she's a great gal, someone who is likable, who speaks Spanish (in addition to presumably Russian), wants to learn new things. Indeed, these are all great for women that spend their life thinking about tennis. It's one thing you don't think about though. There are likely many great individuals who play great tennis, but they aren't necessarily the top players.

In any case, Svetlana lost the match just as much as Henin won it. Henin played steady, solid, superior tennis.

Oh yeah. For some reason, probably due to a taped pronunciation, everyone pronounces Henin's name as "Enna". The second "n" is not pronounced. The "i" is pronounced like an "a". Given that "fin" (meaning "end") is pronounced like "fan", I can see that, but it is grating not to here the second "n". So for some reason, accurate or not, hearing her name pronounced like "Enna" sounds like nails on chalkboard.

Well, I expect the Federer-Djokovic match to be far more entertaining. Hopefully, it lives up.