Seven-time Grand Slam winner Henin announces retirement at the age of just 25

It was the last mysterious act of a very private person's career.

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There have been no shortage of premature retirements among the sport's greats, but perhaps none as stark as Henin's declaration that she had lost the intensity to compete at the pitch she wanted and would be moving on in life with immediate effect.

Martina Hingis and Henin's compatriot Kim Clijsters are recent examples, but perhaps it echoes most strongly Bjorn Borg's sudden exit in 1982, aged 26.

Yet even Borg's march over the horizon does not really compare. By then, he had been overtaken by John McEnroe, whereas Henin still holds an enormous lead at the top of the world rankings.

She has won seven Grand Slam titles and is still the defending champion at Roland Garros and Flushing Meadow after winning 63 matches last season and losing just four.

It turns out that the most significant victory in her mind may have been the final contest of 2007, an epic win over Maria Sharapova in the WTA Tour's year-end championships in Madrid, considered to be one of the greatest women's matches ever played "I thought, I cannot play another match like that or have another season like that," said Henin yesterday in Brussels.

"It was soon afterwards that I started thinking about retiring. The dream of the child is over. I am relieved and very proud.

"I've been playing tennis now for 20 years and it's been my whole life, but as a woman you get older and need to think about the future."

This season has been a sharp contrast to last, but most thought it was a temporary slump following the exertions of 2007 and even WTA staff were stunned when they heard the news yesterday morning. However, those who were at the German Open in Berlin last week — where she slumped to a listless defeat — were surprised by the way she talked after the match with unusual openness about how she looked forward to starting a family, as Clijsters has done.

That her departure was relatively lowkey and a closely guarded secret was entirely in keeping with the way she has conducted a life which has buffeted her in many ways.

Henin's outlook has inevitably been informed by the loss of her mother at the age of 12. She had a short-lived marriage to Pierre-Yves Hardenne, whom she met in a tennis equipment shop, and became estranged from her disapproving family.

After getting divorced early last year she was emotionally reunited with them prior to the French Open, the tournament she visited with her mother as a child and went on to win four times.

There was always a physical brittleness to her and in recent years she had managed her schedule carefully to avoid getting run down.

Neither was her nerve indestructible, as she sought reassuring looks in the stands from long-term coach Carlos Rodriguez, although he could not stop her collapsing in last year's Wimbledon semi-final against little-known Maria Bartoli.

There was nothing remotely brittle, however, about her all-round technique and particularly the near perfection of her backhand, a weapon that could effortlessly turn defence into attack and which has been one of the greatest individual strokes the game has seen. She always played with a phenomenal intensity.

When a lifetime has been spent focusing on nothing more than tennis, it is understandable that the light can go out suddenly. Henin's exit leaves women's tennis wide open.