Newly minted Hall of Famer and former World No.1 Justine Henin returns to the Montréal wing of the Rogers Cup – twice a winner in Toronto – for the first time in 14 years.
But the Belgian has no time for nostalgia; there’s work to be done with Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina, the third youngest woman in the Top 20.
Henin has been a part of Svitolina’s coaching team since February, eight months after the 21-year-old first reached the quarterfinals at the French Open – a tournament Henin won four times.
Work at eponymous tennis club, academy, and “Justine For Kids” foundation precludes her from traveling full-time with the Ukrainian, but the seven-time major champion’s presence has been felt throughout the season.
For her part, Svitolina showed the effects of the partnership right away, reaching the semifinals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships and winning the BMW Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur – where she defeated former Wimbledon finalist Eugenie Bouchard in three grueling sets.
It has been an up and down season since then, but Henin hardly expected perfection from one so young.
“It’s a year of transition for her,” she said before her induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. “She got to the Top 20 at the end of last year. It was a big goal for her, and now she wants to take the next step.”
Svitolina’s second year in the big leagues still has plenty of firsts ahead of her, including a debut appearance at the Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janiero. Ranked just outside the Top 30 on the Road to Singapore leaderboard, the Ukrainian youngster heads into what was a successful part of the season last summer, finishing in the final four of both the Bank of the West Classic and the Western & Southern Open.
Henin believed Svitolina still has big goals for the end of the season, but ultimately preached patience at the sport’s pinnacle in Newport.
“She has a lot of talent and potential, but she needs some time to organize a lot things, and not put too much pressure on the ranking. But I feel lucky to be with a good girl who has a lot of values, respect for the game and for the others on the team. I wish and hope for her that she’ll do well in the second part of the season and maybe qualify for Singapore.
“It’s important, but as I always try to say to the other players, if you look a little bit further and have a big picture of your career, you don’t plan everything for six months or a year, but have a vision for many years. You start to build differently.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen in the second part of the season, but it will be exciting for sure. We always hope for some surprises, and hopefully good tennis in the next few months.”
At 5’9″ tall, her charge isn’t among the tallest on tour, something to which the 5’6″ Henin can relate, having already blazed a trail for the likes of Svitolina, Simona Halep and Dominika Cibulkova to succeed in the modern game.
“I hope I could inspire them in a certain way, or that they realize, that you can’t compete just because you’re not that tall, because you can find other things.”
Looking back on her own experiences, the Belgian cited the importance of shorter players emphasizing their strengths, rather than worrying about their weaknesses.
“We had to choose some direction with my longtime coach, Carlos Rodriguez; do you try to work on your weaknesses, which is important, or do you try to use your strengths and make them even stronger or better? My qualities were my speed, technique, and vision of the game, and we tried to level that up a little bit more. I think with my technique and speed, I could compensate the power of the other players.”
That compensation may come at a cost, but it’s the kind of price Henin believes all champions must be willing to pay.
“Some girls can do it today; you don’t have to be so strong or so tall, you can just use your qualities. It’s harder to have a long career if you are not that tall or strong, because you have to push your body 200% all the time to compete because you have to be physically good. It’s maybe tough to stay on the tour for so many years, which happened to me. That’s the toughest part.
“But if you want to compete at a good level, there’s no reason why you can’t do it.”
Back on the tour for the first time since retiring for the final time in 2011, Henin believes the game is more exciting than ever, with just the right mix of veterans and newcomers coming together to create compelling match-ups.
“Serena winning her 22nd Grand Slam was an amazing accomplishment, one that is just very hard to imagine someone doing in 2016. But she did, so I’m very happy for her.
“At the same time, you see other names like Kerber at the Australian Open and Muguruza in Paris. It’s good because now you feel there’s another generation coming on pretty strongly, and that’s what the game needs, for sure. I like to see these girls competing at a good level, but also pushing Serena to still improve – which is amazing to think that she can still improve – at almost 35 years old.”
