Women’s world No. 1 Justine Henin-Hardenne of Belgium, who has spent most of the year battling a debilitating virus, reached the Olympic tennis gold medal match after beating French Open champion Anastasia Myskina of Russia 7-5, 5-7, 8-6 yesterday.
She will play second seed Amelie Mauresmo of France or Australia’s Alicia Molik in today’s final. That match was next on court.
The Belgian missed her chance to finish the match when 5-4 up on her serve in the second set.
And she fought back from 1-4 in the third to win a pulsating match in 2hr 44min.
The men’s final will be Chile versus the United States after Nicolas Massu beat unseeded American Taylor Dent 7-6 (7-5), 6-1 and Mardy Fish came back to beat another Chilean, Fernando Gonzalez, the 16th seed, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Massu will be playing for Chile’s first Olympic gold medal in any sport in Sunday’s men’s final.
He will also be teaming up with Gonzalez in the men’s doubles final on Saturday against Germany’s Nicolas Kiefer and Rainer Schuettler.
Dent saved three match points before netting a forehand to give Massu his chance in tomorrow’s final.
Gonzalez twisted his left ankle in the fourth game of the second set after winning the first 6-3 against Fish and needed it strapped.
He won only one more game in that set, on his serve, to allow the American to take the set 6-3 and then dropped serve in the ninth game of the third set to allow Fish to serve out the match.
But the Chilean, who beat US Open champion Andy Roddick in the third round, didn’t use it as an excuse.
“Afterward I could run at almost 100 percent,” he said.
Fish could not believe it was him and not best friend Roddick who was carrying America’s colors into Sunday’s final.
“I’m just so excited. I have a chance to play for the gold and I’m guaranteed the silver,” said the American.
He said Roddick, sitting in the stands, had told him to “Go big”.
“That’s what I was trying to do because when he’s got time he’s deadly,” added Fish who beat fifth seed and 2003 French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero in the second round.
“I’m just so excited. I have a chance to play for the gold and I’m guaranteed the silver,” said the American.
Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi of India were playing Mario Ancic and Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia for the men’s doubles bronze medal.
Henin-Hardenne won the French Open and US Open in 2003 and the Australian Open at the start of this year, but she didn’t play for six weeks prior to this year’s French Open because of the virus, similar to glandular fever, which left the normally hyperactive Belgian wanting to sleep all the time.
And at Roland Garros at the end of May she was surprisingly beaten in the second round by Tathiana Garbin of Italy. That was only her second match in four months before coming to Athens.
