Henin braced for Serena after win

LONDON (Reuters) -- French Open champion Justine Henin-Hardenne expects to feel the full force of Serena Williams's power game in their grudge rematch in the Wimbledon semifinals.

Henin looked in peak form as she crushed Wimbledon debutante Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-2, 6-2 in the quarterfinals on Tuesday.

Her semifinal against defending champion Williams will be their first meeting since the Belgian beat the American in an acrimonious French Open semifinal last month.

"I'm sure she is going to play a good match. She is going to be very motivated, I know that," said Henin.

Serena tearfully accused Henin of "lying and fabricating" after their Roland Garros semifinal, when the American was booed and harangued by the Paris crowd, but Henin said that was all behind them now.

"I think we are professional enough to do this," said Henin, the 2001 finalist who is playing in the Wimbledon semifinals for the third successive year.

"There is no problem between us. We are professional, we are colleagues. We are probably going to have a long career playing against each other so it's better like this."

Tactically perfect

Henin, who is physically fragile in comparison with Williams, said the fast grasscourt surface would give Serena a slight advantage.

"It's going to be a different match. She likes the grass. I like it too, but her power is very good. It is probably going to be more difficult for myself than at the French Open."

The 21-year-old Belgian certainly had too many shots for Kuznetsova, who could do little but shake her head as Henin pelted down groundstroke winners on both sides of the court.

Henin broke the 18-year-old Russian's serve twice in each set before winning the match in 58 minutes with a whipping forehand that Kuznetsova could only plant in the net.

"I played much much better than I did in the previous matches," said Henin, who added that her left hand injury was no longer giving her pain during matches.

"I played really aggressively, tactically perfectly.

"My next match is going to be a hard match so I knew I had to build it up today.

"I was thinking maybe about the semifinal. If I want to be aggressive against Serena I had to be aggressive against Kuznetsova."

 

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