Sharapova Out, Henin v Ivanovic in French Open Final

It's one Serb down, one to go for world No. 1 Justine Henin, who is one match away from her third consecutive French Open title.

On Thursday the Belgian was in top form, easily defeating world No. 4 Jelena Jankovic 6-2, 6-2, to move into the final where she will face another Serbian upstart, pin-up girl Ana Ivanovic, who defeated the equally-photogenic Maria Sharapova 6-2, 6-1 to reach her first Grand Slam final.

Henin had gone the three-set diatnace in all five of her previous meetings with Jankovic, but on Thursday would brook no delays on the Roland Garros red clay.


"She just played flawlessly," Jankovic said. "Unfortunately I lost, but it was to the best player in the world, so nothing to be ashamed of."

With history telling her she was in for a drawn-out fight, Henin entered the contest with extra intensity.

"I was ready to play a tough match, because all our other meetings were pretty hard -- I expected a fight, and I was ready to play hard every point," Henin said. "I was very intense the entire match. I showed that I really wanted to win."

Henin is now on the verge of becoming only the second player in Open Era history to win three straight Roland Garros singles titles behind Monica Seles who swept to three in 1990-92.

"It's an honor people are talking about me like that, but it's not the most important thing for me," said Henin, responding to media members ready to christen her as the best player ever at Roland Garros. "I just love to win here. It's my favorite event."

Sharapova was never in the match with Ivanovic, nursing a sore shoulder throughout the event, with her poor movement on the clay in full display.

"Once you start off slow, as I did in the beginning of the first and second sets, the train's already in London -- it's gone," Sharapova said. "But despite losing today, I think this was a very positive two weeks for me, considering I was out for so long. But I'm excited -- my favorite time of the year is coming up, the grass and hardcourt season."

Ivanovic said the final berth is just hard work paying off.

"I've put in a lot of hard work," Ivanovic said. "I have been working a lot on my fitness, especially lately. On clay, that's very important. And especially at a Grand Slam, you have to keep the fitness level for two weeks. I won in Berlin as well, which gave me a lot of confidence. So those are all little things that helped me focus and helped me get through the tough matches I had."

Henin and Ivanovic have only played once, two years ago on clay when the Belgian won 6-4, 7-5.

"Justine won this tournament before, so she's playing well on clay," Ivanovic said. "But at the end of the day, I think it's most important for me to play my game, get focused and move forward -- not to get overexcited about the finals."