Teen Henin Wrecks the Grand Plan

John McEnroe says one thing he enjoys about women’s tennis is its unpredictability. He can say that again. And again.

There were two excellent examples of it in Thursday’s Wimbledon semifinals at the All England Club.

In the first match, Jennifer Capriati started out looking every bit the Grand Slam winner she was trying to become. She won the first set in 21 minutes. She led, 2-1, in the second when Justine Henin, a Belgian teenager playing for the first time on Center Court, requested medical attention for her badly blistered right foot.

Henin said later she’d considered quitting. But she persevered, this being the Wimbledon semifinals. Then she took the next three games, won that set and blazed through the next for a stunning 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory.

Henin, seeded eighth in her second Wimbledon, advanced to Saturday’s final against defending champion Venus Williams, whose 6-2, 6-7 (1), 6-1 semifinal victory over Lindsay Davenport was less surprising but no less unorthodox.

Williams was as dominant as Capriati had been in the first set and started the second in like fashion, losing only eight points in her first three service games--three on double faults--and taking a 4-1 lead.

Suddenly, she collapsed. But, unlike Capriati, Williams survived the third set, although that did not have as much to do with her performance as Davenport’s. Williams might not have fared so well if she had been playing the extra-sharp Henin.

So who will win the final?

Unpredictable.

That’s certainly the word for Capriati’s year--her career, really. She was perhaps the most precocious player in the history of the women’s game before rebelling at 17 and dropping out of sight for a couple of years. Now, at 25, she has completed a remarkable comeback, having won the Australian and French opens this year.

Only three women have won all four major tournaments, also including Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, in the same year.

If she were to keep alive her chance of becoming the fourth, it was clear even during a three-set, quarterfinal victory over the wildly inconsistent (unpredictable?) Serena Williams that the fourth-seeded Capriati would have to raise the level of her game.

She seemed to have done that in the first set, when she broke Henin’s serves in the fourth and eighth games. But in Capriati’s first service game after Henin had received treatment from the trainer in the second set, the American was broken. That was all Henin needed to gain confidence.

“I came out playing great,” Capriati said. “Maybe I thought it was going to be too easy. Maybe I lost my concentration there. I just let up. The whole set and a half, I was just blowing her off the court. Then I wasn’t doing that anymore.

“I don’t know where it really turned. Maybe after she called the trainer. She came out swinging, you know. She was just on her game, hitting everything well, not making any mistakes. There was not much that I could do.”

Of the four semifinalists, Henin, 19, is the only one who doesn’t belong in a category referred to by NBC’s Mary Carillo as “the Big Bash Babes.” Too bad because she could be known as the Belgian Big Bash Babe.

She stands 5 feet 5 and weighs 126 pounds. Capriati is not exactly an Amazon at 5-8 1/2 and 135, but she is a hardbody who plays with power. Henin prefers to slice up her opponents. She also has the game’s best backhand.

“I think in the second set, maybe I tried to be more patient,” she said. “I played a lot with my slice, and [Capriati] didn’t like it. After that, I was more aggressive than her. I went to the net, I served better.”

In short, she was the better all-around player this day.

Henin, in her third year as a professional, also reached the semifinals of the French Open and was up one set and 4-2 in the second against another Belgian, Kim Clijsters, but couldn’t close her out. The experience, apparently, made Henin mentally tougher. She had four break points against Capriati and won them all.

Capriati said the media made a bigger deal of the potential Grand Slam than she had.

“It’s not a disappointment at all,” she said. “It would have been nice, but . . . It helps that you lost to somebody who played well. I mean, definitely, I didn’t lose it. She had to play well to beat me.”

The second semifinal was a match between the last two Wimbledon champions and a rematch of last year’s finalists.

Williams, seeded second, figured to make it to at least the semifinals, but there was less certainly about No. 3 Davenport, who was sidelined for three months this year because of a knee injury and, even though she won a warmup tournament on grass two weeks ago, still played at times during Wimbledon as if she were hindered.

In the sixth game of the first set, with Williams breezing along at 4-1, Davenport hit a forehand out of bounds and then bent over, feeling the back of her bandaged right knee. Williams, no doubt noticing, won the next point with a drop shot that made Davenport run. Davenport won that game, but Williams needed only 25 minutes to win the set.

In that set, she served once at 125 mph, close to her record of 127.

She was equally dominant early in the second set, taking a 4-1 lead. But Williams’ mind often wanders during matches. In her quarterfinal, for instance, she was ahead 5-1 in the first set against Nathalie Tauziat and barely pulled it out, 7-5. This wasn’t quite as bad as that, but her serve was broken in the seventh game, setting up an eventual tiebreaker. She lost that, 7-1, double-faulting on the final point.

She was all alone at that point. Her father, Richard, had been watching from the friends’ box but left for a while, and her sister, Serena, had gone home to Florida because of her virus.

Richard returned later. Venus’ game didn’t, not exactly, but it didn’t matter because Davenport couldn’t hold her serve once in the third set. She was back in the match. Then she wasn’t.

“I really think it went back to the first game [of the third set], just to be able to continue that roll I had worked so hard to get on,” Davenport said of losing her serve to start the third set. “It seems like I just kind of shot myself in the foot by making a few errors and let it all die right in the beginning of the third.”

Williams said she wouldn’t allow herself to lose.

“I really just didn’t feel I was going to go home without the win,” she said. “I just think it was how I was feeling. I don’t like to go home without carrying a plate or a trophy or a title or something. I love winning here. Once you win here, it’s addictive.”

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MEN’S SEMIFINALS

TV: Noon today, Ch. 4 (delayed)

* Patrick Rafter (3), Australia

vs. Andre Agassi (2), U.S.

* Tim Henman (6), Britain

vs. Goran Ivanisevic, Croatia

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WOMEN’S FINAL

TV: 6 a.m. Saturday, Ch. 4

* Justine Henin (8), Belgium

vs. Venus Williams (2), U.S.

Capriati’s Grand Tour

Jennifer Capriati won 19 consecutive matches in this year’s majors before Thursday’s loss to Justine Henin:

AUSTRALIAN OPEN

First round: def. Henrieta Nagyova, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5

Second round: def. Miriam Oremans, 6-0, 6-2

Third round: def. Virginia Ruano Pascual, 6-0, 6-2

Fourth round: def. Marta Marrero, 7-5, 6-1

Quarterfinals: def. Monica Seles, 5-7, 6-4, 6-3

Semifinals: def. Lindsay Davenport, 6-3, 6-4

Final: def. Martina Hingis, 6-4, 6-3

FRENCH OPEN

First round: def. Emilie Loit, 6-2, 7-5

Second round: def. Tathiana Garbin, 6-2, 6-1

Third round: def. Mirjana Lucic, 6-3, 6-1

Fourth round: def. Meghann Shaughnessy, 7-5, 6-1

Quarterfinals: def. Serena Williams, 6-2, 5-7, 6-2

Semifinals: def. Martina Hingis, 6-4, 6-3

Final: def. Kim Clijsters, 1-6, 6-4, 12-10

WIMBLEDON

First round: def. Maria Vento, 6-3, 6-2

Second round: def. Francesca Schiavone, 6-3, 6-1

Third round: def. Tatiana Panova, 6-4, 6-4

Fourth round: def. Sandrine Testud, 6-1, 6-2

Quarterfinals: def. Serena Williams, 6-7 (4), 7-5, 6-3

Semifinals: lost to Justine Henin, 2-6, 6-4, 6-2