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Justine Henin's amazing comeback has continued at the Australian Open as she set up her first Grand Slam final meeting with Serena Williams, the player she rates "the best in the world."
Henin (below) and Williams took turns to dominate the sport with their very different games before the Belgian retired in May 2008, unable to deal with physical and mental demands of tennis.
But she ended her exile at the start of this year and is now one win away from matching the performance of compatriot Kim Clijsters, who won the US Open last September just a month after coming out of retirement.
While Henin's appearance in the final following a 6-1, 6-0 win against China's Jie Zheng today is a personal triumph, the fact she has been able to take 19 months out of the sport and then win a Grand Slam semi-final in just 51 minutes highlights the lack of real quality in the women's game.
At least Williams had a more testing semi-final taking more than two hours to register a 7-6, 7-6 win over another Chinese player, Li Na.
Henin is just happy to have found the energy to reach the final as a wild card and is now hoping to pick up her eighth Grand Slam title.
"If I want to win another one I have to beat the best player in the world," said the 27-year-old, who claimed the crown here in 2004.
"I know that this is the biggest challenge I could get. This is more than a dream for me and now I hope I can do the same as Kim which was amazing.
"Serena is a real champion and has proved it again in this tournament. I think she really helped the game to reach another level and we respect each other a lot. We're both real fighters."
Defending champion Williams was fully extended by 16th seed Li but now has the chance to claim her 12th Grand Slam title and equal the mark of Billy-Jean King, who will be at Saturday's showdown.
"That's the goal," said Williams. "I have a long career to keep trying to do it, but if it doesn't happen this year then I'll keep trying."
A few hours after beating Li, Williams teamed up with Venus to beat Lisa Raymond and Rennae Stubbs 6-3, 7-6 and qualify for tomorrow's doubles final.
The sisters will face top seeds Cara Black and Liezel Huber, who had to battle to beat the 15th seeds Maria Kirilenko and Agnieszka Radwanska, 6-1, 1-6, 6-3.
