Candle in the wind: Justine Henin

Vineet Sharma

She had it all, the fame, the fortune and the talent to match her mercurial rise in the world of tennis. Her young age made even the staunch critics ponder that she might be the best thing that happened to women’s tennis in a long long time. The fairy tale ended abruptly with world number one Justine Henin announcing her retirement from the tennis fraternity, a decision that came as news from the abyss of hell for all her fans.

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It is quite hard to believe that she will no longer enthral the lovers of the game as she became the first woman since Steffi Graf in 1989 to go unbeaten in the second half of the season, post-Wimbledon. Her bidding adios to the game at an age of just 25 years, and that too when she was at the helm of her game does bring forth a plethora of questions to our minds. Is it the ever increasing commercial aspect of the game that is threatening to rob the sport off its very essence? Or is it simply the pressures these sports figures have to face at an early age from the ever probing paparazzi and obsessed fans that spell doom for them? Justine is the first extremely skilled player who has succumbed to this. If Rafael Nadal’s recent lashing at the apex body’s packed schedule is anything to go by, the entire fragment of tennis might be at the risk of being ripped apart. Whatever the reason might be for the early departure of Henin from the tennis circuit, the words of Elton John’s song ‘Candle in the wind’ seem to be a befitting sobriquet to all the athletes of the world in an extremely demanding professional calendar.