Tie-Break!: Justine Henin-Hardenne, Tragedy & Triumph

by Mark Ryan

A gritty girl with a gruesome family history, Justine Henin-Hardenne is no ordinary tennis star. Her Wimbledon Final appearance in 2001, aged 19, was a sign of things to come. In 2003, she won the French and US Open titles to finish the year as World Number One. True to form, she began 2004 by making it a hat trick of Grand Slam triumphs with victory at the Australian Open. Yet behind her amazing triumph, tragedy and discord had torn her family apart. Untimely deaths had struck five generations in less than 30 years. Justine's mother, sister, nephew, grandfather, and great-grandmother lost their lives in exceptionally sad circumstances. Her family almost appeared to be cursed. Yet she chose to treat many surviving relations as though they too had ceased to exist. When Justine married Pierre-Yves Hardenne in 2002, her father and brothers were among those left off the invitation list. How did it come to this? And how did Justine overcome such misery to become queen of world tennis?

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

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Reviews

[Kelly Patterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're a big tennis fan, particularly when Justine was playing, this a great book that was the only book or article I've found (in English) that goes into detail about her childhood and early days of tennis and what happened with her family and the estrangement with her father (now that I think of it, I feel kind of nosy for being so curious, but that's why I'm such a big reader of biographies!).