Posted at 6:53 a.m., Friday, January 11, 2008
Tennis: Henin wins 28th match in a row, Sydney title
By BRAD VAN WELY
Associated Press Writer
Henin lost her service without taking a point in the second game of the third set, but Kuznetsova did the same two games later to allow the Belgian player to pull back on serve at 3-3.
Henin broke Kuznetsova's serve at 4-4 in the third set, then held serve and won on her first match point.
"This was perfect," Henin said. "Sveta played a great match ... really intense and aggressive. That's the kind of match that I really needed before the Open, so I'm glad about that."
Since winning her third straight French Open last year, her only loss in her past 44 matches was in the Wimbledon semifinals to Marion Bartoli of France.
It was her 16th win in 18 matches against Kuznetsova, giving the 25-year-old Belgian her third Sydney title.
"I'm not going to go count all 18 games I've played against her," Kuznetsova said. "Now we are much closer than before. I've been working hard."
The Belgian's last loss was in the Wimbledon semifinals. Last year, she won the French Open and U.S. Open and returned to No. 1 in the rankings.
She'll try to extend the streak to 29 in the first round of the Australian Open early next week when she plays Aiko Nakamura of Japan. Last year, Henin did not play in Melbourne due to the breakup of her marriage.
Earlier, Russian Dmitry Tursunov and Australian Chris Guccione advanced to the Sydney International men's final on Friday.
Tursunov beat France's Fabrice Santoro 6-3, 7-6 (4) while Guccione defeated the Czech Republic's Radek Stepanek 7-6 (5), 3-6, 6-4.
It will be Guccione's first ATP Tour final and his also his first match against Tursunov, the California-based Russian. It is the first Sydney men's final since 2000 without seeded players.
"It's the perfect start to the year really — confidence beating those top players and match practice before the Aussie Open," Guccione said. "I hung in there with my serve and took the opportunity at the end when it came."
Tursunov felt fortunate to have beaten Santoro.
"With a player like Fabrice, its very hard to play your best tennis," Tursunov said.
"His strength is to make you play as bad as humanly possible. With him you have just got to take a win in any way."
The Russian said he's aware of the left-hander Guccione's big service game.
"It's expected that he's going to cruise on his serve most of the games," Tursunov said. "I'm just going to have to try to guess a little bit and hopefully I get it right and connect with the ball."
