NEW YORK (AP) – Justine Henin and Marat Safin have been elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
With a classic one-handed backhand, Henin won seven Grand Slam singles titles and an Olympic gold medal and helped Belgium win its first Fed Cup championship. She spent 117 weeks ranked No. 1 and finished the 2003, 2006 and 2007 seasons in the top spot.
Henin won four French Opens, two U.S. Opens and one Australian Open despite a small frame in a game increasingly dominated by power.
“Not a lot of people really believed I could reach my goal because my dream was to become the best player in the world,” she said on a conference call Tuesday. “It became my goal. A lot of people thought I was a little bit crazy. But strongly, deeply I never really doubted about the fact that I could make it.”
The enigmatic Safin earned two major titles – at the 2000 U.S. Open and 2005 Australian Open – and briefly reached No. 1. He is the first Russian elected to the Hall.