Henin suffers injury in shock defeat
Matthew Cronin
Sixth seed Justine Henin suffered a hand injury in the deciding set and failed to win another game as she was knocked out of the Bank of the West Classic by unseeded American Marissa Irvin in a first round match on Tuesday.
After slipping and stepping on her finger while chasing a ball at 1-1 in third set, the Belgian player received two injury timeouts but was unable to regain her composure against her consistent opponent in the 6-3 4-6 6-1 defeat.
"I don't know exactly what happened but it was so painful," said Henin, who skipped Fed Cup last weekend to concentrate on her hard court preparations for the U.S. Open.
"I'm going to get an X-ray to make sure that nothing's broken. It could be a bone or a ligament as it was very sore."
The number 62-ranked Irvin raced out to a 5-0 lead in the first set, but Henin began to find the range with her all-court game and climbed back to 5-3.
However, Irvin was able to clinch the first set on the back of some fierce serving.
"I focused on serving well and thought I could control some of the baseline rallies and take some points from the net," Irvin said. "I came out playing some of the best tennis of my life."
Henin began to step inside the baseline more in the second set and effectively moved the 22-year-old Irvin around to set up a decider.
But after her fall, the 2001 Wimbledon finalist was a shadow of herself, unable to produce much power and seemingly lost as to what her strategy should be.
"She put me under a lot of pressure," the 20-year-old Henin said. "I had to continue to play because I thought I had my chances. But she played well, was very consistent and served very well."
In other first round matches on Tuesday, Wynee Prakusya of Indonesia outlasted Switzerland's Marie-Gaianeh Mikaelian 6-1 3-6 6-3 and Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugran also needed three sets to overcome Janette Husarova of Slovakia, 6-4 4-6 6-4.
Two players who advanced more easily were America's Meghann Shaughnessy, who defeated Mirjana Lucic of Croatia 7-6 6-3 and Luxembourg's Anne Kremer, a 7-5 6-2 winner over Italy's Rita Grande.
