For the second straight year at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart Tatiana Golovin has defied the odds, and this time she will try to go all the way, as she takes on Justine Henin in the championship match today.
Neither player has dropped a set en route to the showdown, although both have been on the brink of it - Golovin was down 5-2 in the first set of her second round upset over No.4 seed Anna Chakvetadze, while Henin trailed 4-1 in the second set of her semifinal victory over No.3 seed Jelena Jankovic.
But both women hung tough and will now resume a competitive rivalry; although Henin has won both of their prior meetings they were both tightly contested, with the Belgian overcoming a second set break in a straight set win at Charleston two years ago and being pushed to three sets in their second at Paris [Indoors] this year.
Justine Henin has won 15 matches in a row coming into the final, having gone 5-0 to win Toronto, 7-0 to win the US Open and 3-0 to reach the final here. What’s more is that all of those victories have come in straight sets, and Henin is just one off the season-best win streak of 16 (which she recorded between Roland Garros and Wimbledon).
Tatiana Golovin now has 11 career Top 10 wins, having come into Stuttgart with nine but beating Chakvetadze and Kuznetsova along the way to this final. Nine of Golovin's now-11 career Top 10 wins have actually come against Russian players (Petrova three times, Kuznetsova three times, Dementieva twice and Chakvetadze once).
In Golovin’s only prior match with a reigning world No.1, she nearly beat Clijsters in the second round of Antwerp last season, winning the first set and leading by a break at 4-3 in the third set before ultimately falling, 46 76(4) 75.
Both Henin and Jankovic look to avenge prior Porsche Tennis Grand Prix final losses; Henin was a runner-up at Filderstadt in 2001 (to Davenport) and 2003 (to Clijsters), while Golovin was runner-up here last year (to Petrova).
Henin is projected to remain at No. 1 regardless of Sunday’s result; Golovin will move from No.19 to No.18 with a runner-up finish but will surge to No.13 with a title, which would blow away her previous career-high of No.16.
Top seeds Kveta Peschke and Rennae Stubbs face No.2 seeds Chan Yung-Jan and Dinara Safina in the doubles final; of the four finalists, Stubbs currently owns the most career Sony Ericsson WTA Tour doubles titles with 56. (WTA)
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