PARIS - How dare she? How could she?

Women have walked out on me, but this was different. For this one, I was prepared to spend the next five years admiring her moves and touch, the way she controlled herself and spiky situations, up against overpowering foes.

She said it was nothing personal. Everybody else was being left behind, too. Such a passion had flamed within her tiny frame that it seemed she must need asbestos clothing.

My romance, from the distance of press box to tennis court, was over abruptly, and the French Open would have to stir up a successor to Justine Henin, who had four championships in her purse, the last three in succession. It will be a mad scramble among at least seven pretenders, headed by the Siberian Siren, Maria Sharapova, the reigning Australian champ, and is to be settled Saturday.

With Henin wandered off, plus Friday's Fall of the House of Williams (Serena and Venus both leaving unimpressively), it's almost any woman's ballgame.

Paris without "Juju," as her mob of adorers calls Henin, is something like boxing minus Rocky Marciano, the Brockton bruiser, who called it a career in 1956 at the top of his game as Justine was. Rocky, unbeaten, was No. 1 while associating with heavyweights, and so was she, the paperweight surrounded by lofty sluggers. With quickness, guile, heart, and a knockout backhand, Henin more than survived. She was the complete player, using the entire rectangle and every stroke.

At 5 feet 5 inches, 120 pounds, she outpointed the heavies of her profession, but it took such intensive labor to do it that she'd had enough, the only No. 1 ever to flee for good - and break so many hearts in departure, turning 26 today.

Seven majors are hers (two US and an Aussie alongside the French quartet). She will likely stop by Newport, R.I., to be anointed for the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2013.

"The things I wanted to prove, I did it," she says. "I need to do something else. I'm not tall, not strong, not as much as other players. So I had to fight to prove a little girl, a little woman could make it.

"I don't need this adrenaline being in front of thousands of people to be happy."

She's a lucky athlete if that's true.

Another champion's farewell, this on court at Stade Roland Garros, was that of the ebullient Brazilian, Guga Kuerten. Though gimpy hips removed him as a factor some time ago, he took a wild card for the last match of a brilliant career, losing to Paul-Henri Mathieu, respectably, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.

He had emerged as an unknown, unseeded, No. 66 to win in 1997, repeating in 2000 (when he was No. 1) and 2001. Built like a mop, he captivated crowds with his easygoing manner, and, like Henin, a staggering one-handed backhand

Also like Henin, he said, "I had my time, too. I really been intense for the time I was around" - it didn't show - "and I'm not going to have it anymore. I'm not going to miss that much. I feel I had my job done, and maybe I find another way to feel as happy as I was playing tennis."

I hope so. He spread the joy around.

Significant anniversaries are being touted in this precinct: the 80th of Stade Roland Garros; the 40th of the initial major "open," integrating amateurs and pros. The French dug up some prize money, nothing in the same hemisphere of the $1.6 million handout to the male and female champs.

In 1968, Kenny Rosewall, the diminutive yet damaging Aussie - the champ as an amateur in 1953 - returned in his 12th year as a pro to earn $3,000 for beating compatriot Rod Laver in the final. Alas for Texan Nancy Richey, she was hesitant to turn pro, and became the lone amateur woman to win a major. Her victim, Ann Jones, a pro, was awarded the $1,000 first prize.

The only player I've met who could identify Roland Garros was Martina Navratilova, though there may be others. A noted aviator in the formative days of flight, Garros was the first to fly across the Mediterranean from France, taking about eight hours. Later, in World War I, he had the idea of mounting a machine gun on his plane, shooting down five German planes, becoming the war's first ace.

However, he, too, was shot down fatally, his heroic name chosen for the new tennis complex in the Bois de Boulogne in 1928.

It was built primarily as a site for the French defense of the Davis Cup, lifted from the US in 1927. French authorities had borrowed heavily for the construction, figuring on sellouts because everybody wanted to see the great American, Big Bill Tilden.

Panic struck the French when Tilden, ever at odds with the US Tennis Association, was suspended for violation of a silly amateur rule. Ticket sales stopped.

A man named Myron T. Herrick popped up as the star. As the US ambassador to France, he contacted the State Department, insisting pressure be applied to the USTA to reinstate Tilden. Everybody was happy. Tilden played, the French won despite his victory over Rene Lacoste (he of later crocodile shirt-creating fame), and the Stade was paid for.

I wish there were a diplomat around who could talk Justine Henin into

reinstating herself. Otherwise, she's the leading lady who ambled out of my life.

From : http://www.boston.com/