Published: May 14, 2008 07:08 am         

Belgian media report: Henin to quit tennis

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — Top-ranked Justine Henin will make a major announcement about her career Wednesday amid reports she will quit professional tennis.

Henin, who has been in a slump all spring, called a news conference, while local newspapers already carried headlines saying “Henin quits.”

The 25-year-old Belgian has always said she sought a long career and despite injuries and a divorce, she had a sterling 2007 with two Grand Slam victories and eight other tour titles.

However, after winning her home tournament in Antwerp in February, she has been on one of her worst skids of her career and failed to go beyond a quarterfinal since.

This year she lost to Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova and Italy’s Francesca Schiavone, and some were lopsided. Last week she was ousted from the Berlin Open in the third round and this week she pulled out of the Italian Open.

Her announcement could range from withdrawing for a limited amount of time, to retiring at the end of the season or quitting all tennis immediately.

“She finds it tough, losing matches she normally would not lose,” Fed Cup captain Sabine Appelmans said. “But I don’t think her career is over. She has to get through this and then end her career at the top of her game.”

Only last year in May, Belgium’s Kim Clijsters, a former No. 1 player, said farewell to competitive tennis. Clijsters has since married and become a mother.

Throughout her career, Henin has had to beat the odds.

She had to battled the giants in the game and with a superlative one-handed backhand, amazing speed and endless determination, she won seven Grand Slam titles and an Olympic title. The only major to escape her is Wimbledon.

She lost her mother to cancer when she was 12 and only reunited with her father and close family last year after almost a decade of separation. During that difficult youth, tennis gave her a sense of mission and it became all-encompassing.

At the outset of her productive 2007, she also divorced from Pierre-Yves Hardenne, a Belgian to whom she had been married for four years.

Henin said she had found a balance in her life between a sense of personal self-fulfillment and doggedly pursuing tennis titles.

At that time, though, her tennis started to unravel.