Belgian pair poised to shape new order at top

The old joke about the difficulty of naming five famous Belgians is wearing a little thin in tennis. Xavier Malisse was a Wimbledon semi-finalist and might have made the final had his overactive heartbeat not interfered in his semi-final against David Nalbandian, and the small country that is to French jokes what Ireland is to British has two players in the women's top four and is challenging the hegemony of the Williams sisters.

This week's women's rankings show Serena Williams miles ahead at the top, with Kim Clijsters second, Venus Williams third and Clijsters' fellow-Belgian, Justine Henin-Hardenne, fourth. The vagaries of the 52-week system mean Venus will slip above Clijsters for two weeks this month, but a pattern is emerging that should mean Serena and Clijsters are the top two players in the second half of this year. And the only two players to have beaten Serena since last August are the two Belgians.

The dominance of women's tennis by the Williams sisters in the past year has been absolute, but in the last match of 2002 Clijsters beat Serena 7-5, 6-3 in the final of the WTA Tour's year-ending championships, taking the likeable Belgian to fourth in the rankings. When Clijsters then won the tournament in Sydney a week before January's Australian Open, the 19-year-old was the form player of the women's tour and led Serena 5-1 in the final set of their Australian Open semi-final. But the breakthrough proved elusive, she squandered two match points at 5-2, and Serena went on to win the tournament.

Despite that, Clijsters has continued to progress, winning the title in Indian Wells in March, and is fully worthy of her No 2 ranking. Perhaps more importantly for the Williams-dominated WTA Tour, she and Henin-Hardenne are also a breath of fresh air.

Clijsters was born into a sporting family. Her father, Leo, played international football for Belgium, becoming the country's player of the year in 1988, and her mother, Els, was a gymnast. Having proved himself in his own sporting discipline, Leo Clijsters had nothing to prove as a tennis dad and became a watchword for the kind of parent a coach liked; he would drop his daughters off at coaching, ask what time he was to pick them up, and not try to interfere. Though he takes a much more active role in Kim's management these days, he generally keeps out of the coaching side.

The result is a pair of daughters – the younger, Elke, is the world's top-ranked junior doubles player – who are refreshingly down to earth. Kim speaks English with the assurance of a mother tongue, and did so even before her very steady relationship with the Wimbledon champion, Lleyton Hewitt, got going four years ago. She is also one of the most likeable players on the tour for her warmth and humanity.

Such is the esteem in which Clijsters is held that her relationship with Hewitt is generally felt to be the Wimbledon champion's greatest reference. The Australian's confrontational manner easily earns him the image of being a dislikeable thug, but if you can judge someone by the company they keep he has scored well.

His devotion to Clijsters has been touching. When she won the tournament in Filderstadt in October and then went on to Zurich, he watched every one of her matches, including doubles into the small hours. Hewitt has also turned out to support Elke in the junior Grand Slam tournaments. The support works both ways; Kim was at the Davis Cup finals of 2000 and 2001 to urge on Hewitt; 2000 in Barcelona, 2001 in Melbourne prior to spending Christmas with the Hewitt family in Adelaide.

Clijsters has declined any advice about hiding the relationship, choosing instead to talk openly about it to keep it defused. When asked about Hewitt's state of health after he had he cried off October's Tennis Masters in Madrid with a viral infection and supported her that week in Zurich, she said: "I think I gave him what he's got... That's the problem in a relationship, if one gets it, the other normally does too."

Like Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski, whose rivalry has spurred each other to heights that may be greater than if they had ploughed a lone furrow, Clijsters has the benefit of a compatriot at the top of the women's game. She and Henin-Hardenne are two very different characters, yet feel totally comfortable with each other without being close friends. Both clearly are OK with themselves, and give the impression they are happy that there's room for two top-level tennis players in Belgium.

In contrast to Clijsters, Henin-Hardenne is much more serious. The still shy face hiding behind the peak of her cap, perched on a frame which seems lamentably small for today's power tennis, naturally attracts affection, as does the one-handed backhand which has people purring even when they have seen it hit a thousand balls. But you never see her smile on court except when she wins a match.

"I do have a good sense of humour, and I think that's important," she says, "but I'm a serious person, that's my character. I can go crazy away from tennis, like go riding on a rollercoaster. Maybe I do need to be more relaxed, but I'm happier than I was 18 months ago."

Two years ago Henin-Hardenne was still fighting for consistent fitness after the first four years of a career in which she had suffered an injury every time she played three weeks of competition. Then, two years ago this week, she crushed Venus Williams in Berlin, going on to reach the French Open semi-finals, and the Wimbledon final.

That really established the 20-year-old from Marloie, but like so many players, she found the year following the breakthrough a hard one. "I think I did very well last year," she says. "I stayed in the top 10. It's one thing to get to the top 10, it's another to stay there. Perhaps the main thing I've learned is to stay positive, even when things are going wrong, because you need to build a life after tennis. I may finish with tennis at 30 and there's a whole lot of life after that. I hate to lose, but when you think of things like 11 September it makes you realise tennis isn't the whole of your life. I lost my mother when I was very young, and I want to have a family after tennis. Maybe real life will begin then."

But could such an attitude to life suggest a player not quite as single-minded as she should be? After all, the dedication needed to survive at the top is intense enough, and at 5ft 5in Henin-Hardenne has to work harder than those to whom she concedes five inches and more. But she knows more about life than many people her age. As the brat pack of the British media tried desperately to unearth during Wimbledon 2001, Henin's mother, Françoise, who first introduced her to tennis, died of cancer when Justine was only 12. The family then went through a series of tensions, which it is only now working through, frequently leaving Henin-Hardenne a talented, likeable but sad-looking prodigy on the junior circuit and lower-ranking tour events.

In recent months, the sad brown eyes have had more of a sparkle. She has grown in confidence in interviews, she is happy with where she is professionally and personally, and in November she became Justine Henin-Hardenne when she married her long-time fiancé, Pierre Yves.

Though her year got off to a slow start, she hit the headlines last month when she inflicted Serena Williams' first defeat of 2003 in the final in Charleston. That is twice she has beaten Serena, and a third win against a Williams, but all three have been on clay, leaving the suspicion that tennis's slowest surface is the only one on which she has a realistic chance against the powerful Americans. "Clay gives me more time to organise my game," she said afterwards, reflecting the methodical way she approaches tennis.

Both Henin-Hardenne and Clijsters have the chance to assert themselves over the next few weeks. Both had poor French Opens last year, which means the chance to make up ground on the Williams sisters (finalist and champion last year) is considerable. Henin-Hardenne, with her single-handed backhand and court craft, has the variety of game that women's tennis so desperately needs, but Clijsters has the build and power of shot that seems the staple for today's top 10 female player. She is arguably this decade's equivalent of Steffi Graf with her booming forehand and unfussy manner on court. When she wears a white bandanna under her blonde ponytail, she even looks something like Graf.

Clijsters will not predict how far she can go, but shares the ambition that took Hewitt to the top of the men's rankings. Henin-Hardenne is more philosophical: "Everybody has a place on the tour," she says. "It's like in any job, we can't all be No 1, and I have my place and at the moment it's four. I'd like to be higher, but I accept where I am for now."

Martina Navratilova, in one of her many colourful but perceptive remarks, said: "Being a top-level tennis player stunts your emotional growth." What she meant is that if you put in the effort needed to reach the top at a relatively young age, it will come at the cost of your emotional development.

Many would agree with the thesis, yet a look at the top 10 in women's tennis doesn't offer Navratilova much support, and Clijsters and Henin-Hardenne certainly seem well-adjusted. It's perhaps a sad reflection on top-level sport that the greatest compliment that can be paid to them is that they seem so terribly normal.

KIM CLIJSTERS

Residence: Bree, Belgium

Date of Birth: 8 June, 1983

Birthplace: Bilzen, Belgium

Height: 5ft 8.5in (1.74m)

Weight: 150lb (68kg)

Plays: Right-handed

WTA Tour singles titles: 12

WTA Tour doubles titles: 7

Grand Slam titles: 0

ITF Womens Circuit singles titles: 3

Prize Money 2002: $1,754,376

Career Prize Money (to end of 2002): $3,649,280

JUSTINE HENIN

Residence: Marloie, Belgium

Date of Birth: 1 June, 1982

Birthplace: Liege, Belgium

Height: 5ft 5.75in (1.67m)

Weight: 126lb (57kg)

Plays: Right-handed

WTA Tour singles titles: 8

WTA Tour doubles titles: 2

Grand Slam titles: 0

ITF Womens Circuit singles titles: 7

Prize Money 2002: $1,213,093

Career Prize Money (to end of 2002): $2,425,250