US OPEN

September 3, 2005

Justine Henin

THE MODERATOR: Questions in English, please.

JUSTINE HENIN-HARDENNE: I think I played first set and the beginning of the second with a very high intensity. I was playing very well, then lost a little bit of my aggressivity. I didn't play bad very when she broke to come to 3-1 in the second, but after that the match changed a little bit. I was a little bit too far from the baseline. I wasn't that aggressive. It was very difficult to keep the intensity as high as it was, but I could win this match probably earlier. But finally when I had to be aggressive at the end of the set, I did, so I got the win in two sets.

JUSTINE HENIN-HARDENNE: Yeah, it's been a little bit of trouble for me in my last two matches. I don't have especially one reason, but I'm sure I'll get better. I'm happy with my percentage of first serve. I think I have to keep working on it, and when I will -- I need some confidence. When I will get this confidence, I'm sure my serve is going to get better.

JUSTINE HENIN-HARDENNE: I think so. I am a player who needs a lot of matches, especially before a Grand Slam. But right now I won a couple of matches, and that gives confidence. And when you injured, you have to rest. So that's bad enough. But before a Grand Slam, for sure, you probably need more than one tournament. But I played five matches in Toronto, and that's been pretty good.

JUSTINE HENIN-HARDENNE: I think, yeah. It's just on the court that we can see the real fights. It's not what everybody else can say. I'm going to try to prove on the court that I'm part of the players who can go to the end of the tournament. That's the situation like this, and I don't care about that.

JUSTINE HENIN-HARDENNE: It did, yeah. But, you know, I'm Justine Henin, it's going to be like that, I think, for my whole career. It's the way I am and the way I act. I think it's going to be very hard for me to change that in the future. My sensibility help me to do a lot of great things to achieve great goals, but sometimes it gives me a little bit of trouble.

JUSTINE HENIN-HARDENNE: You cannot fight through that.

JUSTINE HENIN-HARDENNE: No. It's just the way you are. You try to get better, try to handle better with this situations. But it's very hard to change your character and your personality, and I don't want to because that's what help me so much to did what I do -- to do what I did.

JUSTINE HENIN-HARDENNE: I think for me it's much harder to play my first rounds where I have a lot of pressure, where I have to win, because it's these kind of matches that on the paper you have to win. I'm more comfortable when I know I'm going to play a seeded player. And it's going to be a good test for me anyway. Both of them are playing very well. It's going to be a tough match in the fourth round, but it's going to be a good test for me and very interesting.

JUSTINE HENIN-HARDENNE: That gives confidence; that gives security that I built my own family. So that's very important that I have the support of my husband, who is traveling not all the time but in a lot of tournaments. So that is very important, especially for a woman - more sensitive than men, for sure.

JUSTINE HENIN-HARDENNE: No (smiling), never.

JUSTINE HENIN-HARDENNE: Yeah. It's time for tennis right now. I don't know when, I hope as late as possible. I hope I can enjoy my game and be physically and mentally ready for a couple of years. But one day for sure we want to have kids and it's gonna be another life that gonna start. I don't think we can do both. It's very difficult. Being at the top of the game means a lot of sacrifices, and it's a lot of pressure. You have to start every day, every day, give everything 100% and you have to stay very concentrated all the time on your tennis. So no time for babies now.

JUSTINE HENIN-HARDENNE: I don't know. I think I've been lucky. But, yeah, it's just the way you see the things. I think players, they think that it's very hard to get married because maybe their husband cannot travel with them, so it's better not getting married during their career. It's a choice. And also I think that a lot of players, maybe they want to have time to organize the wedding and everything after their career. It takes a lot of energy. When I got married, it's been a week after The Championships and I was completely out of my mind at The Championships. I couldn't play because I was focused on something else - more important probably.

JUSTINE HENIN-HARDENNE: I'm not quite sure Mary is going to win. It's going to be a tough match for her today. I think both of them, like I said, are playing very well. If it's Mary, it's going to be another kind of situation, another surface. It's not going to be a Grand Slam final like it was at the French Open. Different kind of pressure for her. So I'll have to play my best game for sure. If it's Jankovic or Pierce, especially on hard court, they're both playing very well. It's going to be a good test for me and I'm very excited about that.