Heat under surface in Paris

With Serena Williams “ready to step up and grab a ... wild bear right now” in the words of her father, Richard, the French Open awaits her bout with an ingenious pipsqueak.

The quarterfinal that resembles a final has materialized to lend Tuesday the promise of fracas.

Serena Williams, the Australian Open champion seeded No. 8 here, will play No. 1 Justine Henin, the twice-defending French champion, for the first time on clay since 2003, when Henin, seeded No. 4 , upended Williams, then No. 1, in a semifinal heavy on cacophony.

Other than a jolting third-set turnaround, the sound of Williams berating the chair umpire, the sight of Henin’s gamesmanship, the crowd jeering Williams, Williams exiting in tears, the match’s gravitas as a flash point of recent tennis history, and the possible overtone of the then-nascent war in Iraq, that match had nothing.

“It seems like decades ago,” Williams said. “It seems very far away from now,” Henin said.

Here’s how far: At the time, Williams ruled the earth. Henin hadn’t won a major. Williams had won the last four Grand Slam tournaments. Henin hadn’t won a Grand Slam semifinal since Wimbledon in 2001. Williams had won 33 consecutive Grand Slam matches and all 10 sets in that tournament.

Henin won the first set, 6-2. Williams won the second set, 6-4, and led the third, 4-2, 30-love. Henin won the third set, 7-5.

Famously, at 4-2 and 30-love, Williams tossed up a first serve, but Henin held up her hand indicating she wasn’t ready, whereupon Williams served a fault, whereupon Henin did not acknowledge to the chair umpire that she had raised her hand, whereupon Henin got the point and Williams got irked.

“I was a little disappointed in her,” Williams said that day, noting the “lying and fabricating.”

The French crowd hissed, Williams’ mother, Oracene, noted “a lack of class and total ignorance, or they just don’t know tennis and the etiquette of tennis,” and Serena Williams said, “I don’t think being American right now had anything to do with it. I just think sometimes you want the underdog to win.” Such days last in the brain’s memory bank -- “I will never forget that moment,” Henin said Sunday -- but perhaps not in its motivation zone.

Said Richard Williams: “You know, a child doesn’t tell you everything, but I don’t think Serena would be crazy enough or stupid enough to carry that thing all this time. I think if she did she probably would’ve mentioned it to me.”

In news conferences Sunday after Williams put the clamp on No. 10 Dinara Safina, 6-2, 6-3, and after Henin finished off Sybille Bammer, 6-2, 6-4, they each addressed June 5, 2003, but of course, only when asked and only as more wizened sages -- both 25 rather than 21.

“It’s been the beginning of an amazing adventure in Grand Slams for me,” Henin said.

“I’ve definitely grown up a lot, matured a lot, you know, and been through a lot of things since ‘03,” Williams said. “And just maybe I’m more cynical.”

Real life since then: Henin said she recently reunited with her long-estranged father, suffered the dissolution of her marriage and skipped the 2007 Australian to cope. Williams had surgery in 2004 and screaming knees in 2006 that permitted participation in only four events. Most horribly, her half sister, Yetunde Price, died at 31 in a shooting in September 2003. Henin and Williams have played only twice since their 2003 French Open meeting. Williams routed Henin, 6-3, 6-2, in a 2003 Wimbledon semifinal. And this year, in the final at Miami, Williams demonstrated her taste for danger, fended off two match points and won, 0-6, 7-5, 6-3.

“No, we never talked about 2003,” Henin said, “because, well, that’s the way it is. We each have our own career. We live our own lives. And I think things have calmed down. In Miami, we had great respect for one another. We fought like tigers, both of us, and in Miami there was great respect on both sides. And that’s it.”

Williams, ever coy, said there’d been no discussion since 2003, but wouldn’t confirm whether one had transpired in 2003.

She did discuss at length how her cynicism might date to childhood. “When I was young, and it still hurts to talk about it,” she said, half winking, “but when we played those games in kindergarten, that was always duck, duck, duck, duck, goose, and I was never goose. So, you know, ever since then, it’s always been it’s half-empty. I’m never gonna be the goose, you know.... So man, I need to talk to a shrink about this. I’m going too far into this. Never mind. I was never the goose.”

Then she laughed out loud, and when a reporter suggested maybe the other kids feared her speed so never made her the goose, and she said, “Look at me now, you know! Look at me now!” If you look at her now, you see an eight-time Grand Slam champion who has zoomed from No. 140 last year to No. 81 on New Year’s Day to No. 8 with an Australian Open championship and a good French shot at stoking Grand Slam chatter.

After she finished off Safina on Sunday, she smiled from here to Beverly Hills all the way off the court. Her father gave a thumbs up from just above the exit tunnel and pointed to her left, hoping she’d acknowledge two guys holding an American flag. She waved over there and smiled more, booked for a date opposite Henin’s beguiling array of clever shots. Henin hasn’t lost here since 2004.

Richard Williams sees something in Serena these days and says, “I don’t think anyone is going to touch her here, not at all.”

But it’s Henin’s “house,” right, went one question, like Staples Center is Kobe Bryant’s “house,” or Miami is Dwyane Wade’s or Shaquille O’Neal’s “house”?

“I think it’s Amelie’s house,” Serena Williams said, referring to the Frenchwoman Mauresmo.

But don’t you have to win ... ?

“The Lakers don’t win,” she said, and laughed again.

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French Open

Tuesday’s women’s quarterfinals: No. 1 Justine Henin vs. No. 8 Serena Williams; No. 2 Maria Sharapova vs. No. 9 Anna Chakvetadze; No. 3 Svetlana Kuznetsova vs. No. 7 Ana Ivanovic; No. 4 Jelena Jankovic vs. No. 6 Nicole Vaidisova.

* Sunday’s quote of the day: “It’s tough playing tennis and being Mother Teresa at the same time.” -- Maria Sharapova, on being jeered by the French crowd for not stopping play when Patty Schnyder called for time.

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Los Angeles Times