Fightback is Justine time for Henin

Jun 20 2010 by Chris Vaughan, Sunday Mercury

JUSTINE Henin had the perfect conclusion to her preparations for Wimbledon when she claimed the women’s title after fighting back from a set down against Andrea Petkovic at the UNICEF Open in Holland.

The Belgian top seed had not dropped a set en route to the final but she was soon in trouble against her seventh-seeded rival, who broke the former world number one in her first service game.

Petkovic went on to take the first set 6-3 and then broke Henin during her first service game in the second, but the world number 18 rallied to level the match by taking the second set 6-3.

The German then took a 3-0 lead in the decider but Henin hit back to take the final set 6-4 and claim her fourth grass court title. Henin, who faces Anastasia Sevastova in the first round at Wimbledon, said: “I kept fighting. I needed to win on grass.”

Sergiy Stakhovsky produced a dominant service game to claim his third ATP World Tour title with an emphatic 6-3 6-0 defeat of Janko Tipsarevic.

The Ukrainian hit eight aces and dropped just seven points on his serve in the final, which lasted just 56 minutes. Stakhovsky, who donated his racquet to UNICEF, said: “I played really well today.

“By the score, I believe this would be the easiest match of the week, but it definitely wasn’t as there was a lot of tension. I can’t really say I had easy matches; more or less all of them were close in some way. I think I was a bit better and a little more consistent.”