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WIMBLEDON, England - For Justine Henin-Hardenne, victory Saturday in the Wimbledon final sends her to the pantheon with nine great women players who have won each of the Grand Slam events at least once.
For Amelie Mauresmo, this title is no less important in a more personal sense.
She was, for years, the best WTA Tour player never to win a major. Now, having won the 2006 Australian Open with the aid of three retirements, she's got her Grand Slam and an asterisk to go with it.
It's a burden she didn't seek and she has often said you can play only what is in front of you. But, in a historical sense, she needs this title or some other major title to prove her greatness.
What makes this match even more intriguing is that it is a rematch of the Melbourne final, where Henin-Hardenne quit at 6-1, 2-0 because of stomach pain. And there was the issue of the way she quit - going to the chair umpire first without having the courtesy to approach the net and tell Mauresmo, "I'm sorry, but I can't continue. Congratulations."
But that's Henin-Hardenne. There is an aloofness about her that fits quite perfectly with her more or less one-dimensional view of life - that tennis is everything.
Mauresmo has taken the high road in this rematch. "I hope it will be a great match," she said. "I hope we both can really compete at our best level."
Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Steffi Graf, Billie Jean King . . . almost all the greats of the game have won all four Slams, and a win here would be Henin-Hardenne's sixth major at age 24.
She would also join Navratilova, Graf, King, Margaret Court, Evonne Goolagong and Serena Williams as the only players to win the French and Wimbledon in the same year in the Open Era.
A reporter suggested Friday it's her destiny, but she disagreed. "It would not be good to have this feeling," she said. "It's for me just another opportunity to win another Slam."
There are similarities and differences with them. Both will attack the net, though Mauresmo is more likely to do so off her serve. Both have classic backhand ground strokes. But where Henin-Hardenne is 5 feet 5 and 125 pounds, Mauresmo has built herself into one of the more powerful 150-pound players on the tour.
They'll run the finals
Gerry Armstrong and Alison Lang, a couple of top umpires who have also had their shaky moments, will be in the chair for the men's and women's finals this weekend.
Lang, who will officiate today's championship match between Henin-Hardenne and Mauresmo, will be recalled as the umpire for the U.S. Open semifinal in 2005 in which Mary Pierce was approved for 12 minutes worth of timeouts in a match against Elena Dementieva.
The timeouts were determined to be within the rules, but Lang never informed the 20,000 people on the Arthur Ashe Stadium court why she could have consecutive timeouts.
This is Lang's second Wimbledon final. She also officiated the 2004 final here between Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams.
Armstrong, who is a gold-card referee, in 2004 at the Nasdaq-100 Open overruled a Vince Spadea shot on match point which, loser Marat Safin later told reporters, was good.
Armstrong probably had his most embarrassing moment two years ago at Wimbledon when the audience on Court 1 had to remind him the set score was 5-5 between Andy Roddick and Sjeng Schalken. Armstrong had just announced, "Six-all. . .tiebreak.
Armstrong will be doing his fourth Wimbledon men's final Sunday. He previously officiated Stefan Edberg-Boris Becker in 1988, Pete Sampras-Cedric Pioline in 1997 and Roger Federer-Mark Philippoussis in 2003.
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(c) 2006 South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
