Ivanovic and Henin to meet in final clash
World number one Henin will bid for a third consecutive Roland Garros title — and fourth in total — after sweeping comfortably past fourth seed Jelena Jankovic of Serbia, 6-2 6-2.
An hour and a half earlier, fellow Serb Ivanovic, the 19-year-old seventh seed, demolished an error-prone Maria Sharapova 6-2 6-1 in stunning fashion to reach her first grand slam final.
The two finalists have met just once before, two years ago on clay in Warsaw when Henin won in straight-sets.
The form both displayed suggests it will be close tomorrow, though 25-year-old Belgian Henin will be favourite.
The champion in 2003, 2005 and 2006, Henin said: “She’s in great shape, Ivanovic. She won in Berlin this year and is very confident. She’s matured a lot over the last year.
“I think the player who manages to control the match better will win.
“This is my favourite event. It was the tournament I watched as a little girl, and it was a dream to win it once. I have done it three times. I still have a lot to do to win it a fourth time.”
Ivanovic added: “It will be an amazingly tough match. Justine won this tournament a few times before and she’s playing good on clay.
“But it’s important for me to play my game and focus.
“I’m very excited. Coming here, I didn’t expect any of this. I just tried to focus on each match separately.”
Henin was thrilled with the way she dealt with Jankovic, who had emerged as a dark horse for the title owing to her three tour wins this year and also her elimination of Venus Williams and Nicole Vaidisova.
It was Henin’s 20th straight victory at Roland Garros, and she has now won 33 sets in a row here since 2005.
She broke serve five times in total, the first coming in the fourth game of the 37-minute first set when Jankovic sent a backhand into the net.
After squandering three break points in the sixth game, she kept the pressure on the Serb’s malfunctioning serve and broke it to love in the eighth to take the set.
The world number one was just as dominant in the second set, taking Jankovic’s serve on three consecutive occasions to clinch a sixth straight-win over the Serb.
Jankovic admitted she was simply outplayed. “Justine was a way better play than I was,” said the 22-year-old.
“She was just too good. She was hitting the ball cleanly and I wasn’t. I was playing the wrong shot at the wrong time. It was a bad day for me.”
Henin’s win ruined hopes the talented Ivanovic may have had of an all-Serbian final against Jankovic.
Jankovic’s movement proved too much for Sharapova.
It was embarrassing at times for the second seed, who made mistake after mistake on either wing, reducing the Parisian crowd to a slow hand clap midway through the second set.
“I just made sloppy errors,” said the Russian, who did not apportion any of the blame for her below-par display on shoulder problems that troubled her throughout the tournament.
“I gave her the chances to open up the court. I was making unforced errors. I didn’t quite have the rhythm.”
In the men’s today, number one seed Roger Federer will face Russia’s Nikolay Davydenko while Serbia’s Novak Djokovic faces Spanish champion Rafael Nadal.
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