Justine's retirement

Well, you could have knocked me over with the proverbial feather when I first heard of the retirement by the world's #1 ranked player, Justine Henin.

Still trying to get my head around it. All I wanted to do was send  her a text and just ask a very short question- ARE YOU SURE???????????????????????????????????

Did not send the text as I no longer have her phone number...though I don't think it would have made any difference. Apparently for Justine stubornness is of premier quality and no one can talk her out of it once she makes her mind up, not even she can do that.

First off I would like to say to Justine-enjoy your life, because no matter what you do after tennis, your  will feel like you are on a vacation. Especially considering how committed Justine was to her sport. Always the consummate professional and perfectionist, she left no stone unturned in her quest to become a complete player. And perhaps because she succeeded while so young (at 25 to me she is a toddler),she felt there was nothing more to do.

Last year was a spectacular year by anyone's standard and now things could only go downhill. Maybe that was a small reason. But most of all,I think because of the kind of tennis Justine Henin plays, it takes all the emotion,passion and concentration to do this, and as such it is impossible to maintain for a long time. After all,Henin is a 10 year veteran on the tour and is entitled to being a bit burned out. Also she had been battling all kinds of injuries and maladies and those also take their toll on the mental side. One only has so much energy to give in a lifetime and you don't really want to use it all up before you hit 30. I know about burnout-mine hit later and I actually played burned out for over 2 years before I figured it out. Well, actually Billie Jean King figured it out for me in 1989 (in 1988 I hired a well known sports psychologist to help me find out what was wrong and he was useless)

But Billie got it quickly and this was her fix - take a complete week off ( I mean for a whole week I only did things I wanted to do-a total mind and body vacation) , and see if you can regain that love of the game you had when you were a little girl hitting against the wall. So I did and I did.  Took the week off and found my love of the game was still there, burning brightly and I wanted to win that grass court tournament called Wimbledon one more time. So that is pretty much what I would have suggested to Justine .  Take a week off, see how you feel at the end and if that love of the sport is not there, bag it.

Maybe that is exactly what she did. Strangely though what Justine is talking about in her press conferences is wanting to be a full time woman. I am not sure what that means( I thought she had that down  pretty well), but unfortunately for all of us who loved watching her play and compete, Justine's wish to live as a woman came about 5 years too soon!!!!!

So thank you Justine Henin for all those great matches, fantastic
memories and most of all, for that sublime backhand that will never be equaled.