iSporter Chirag Mansukhani has been closely following Justine Henin's progress at the 2010 Australian Open. He writes on her Quarter Final win against Russian Nadia Petrova.
The dream comeback of Belgian former World No. 1 Justine Henin continued as she sent the ‘in form’ Russian Nadia Petrova packing. It took Henin almost 2 hours to dispatch the Russian giant killer who had earlier in the tournament defeated both Kim Clijsters and Svetlana Kuznetsova.
It was a mesmerizing performance from the Belgian as she defeated Nadia Petrova with a straight sets victory 7-6(3) 7-5. It was a see-saw first set as both players struggled to hold onto their serves and it took a tie-break to separate the two. In the tie-break it was Henin who came out on top moving her opponent from side to side and winning the tie-break 7-3 with relative ease.
However, the Russian had no intentions of letting up just yet as she came out all guns blazing and stormed to a 3-0 lead early in the second set. Henin then responded by lifting her game to another level as she took the lead 4-3 and eventually the second set 7-5.
Petrova committed far too many unforced errors with 41 to Henin’s 26. Henin also managed to control the points better than Petrova as she managed to hold her nerve better than the Russian.
An interesting fact to note was that Henin just served at 45% throughout the match. This will be a worrying factor for Henin as she would need to better those stats if she is to go the next few steps and claim the Australian Open title in what would be a dream comeback.
Henin will now play Jie Zheng who became the first Chinese woman to make it to an Australian Open singles semi-final. If Henin is to win the title what a story it would be! 2 Queens of Belgian women’s tennis, win back to back slams! Could Henin pull off a Clijsters? Well one certainly hopes she does!
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