Eight years later, and Serena Williams and Justine Henin are still looking for closure.

“Question,’’ Williams wrote on her Twitter account. “I keep hearing about an admittance to someone cheating me & lying about it after at the French open? Did she confess finally?’’

Well that “someone’’ Williams could not bring herself to name was Henin. And if Williams were truly interested in finding out if Henin had fessed up to what happened at the 2003 French Open, the infamous Hand Incident, then Williams could have just googled it. Instead, she wrote it in a question with very pointed words to her two million Twitter followers, including media members who would make those words even more public.

So this was about sending a message. For some reason, Henin did talk about it, and other controversial moments in her career, in a TV interview in Belgium. She is acknowledging wrong-doing in several things, possibly for closure, while taking a slow exit from the stage since retiring last month.

“It’s true,’’ Henin said about the Hand Incident, “that is not my best memory.’’

I’ll get into the specifics in a minute. But this is an amazing example of how a small, somewhat insignificant moment can escalate over the years, blow up into hard feelings and rivalry and probably even hatred. It all shows in the fact that both of them still feel the need to talk about it now.

In Henin’s case, I assume it has been eating at her. I wouldn’t say she cheated exactly, to use Williams’ word, but what she did was provide a shocking example of terrible sportsmanship. It would define her in several ways for the rest of her career.

In Williams’ case, I think she has let the discussion build up and re-shape the facts in her head. Henin was the one in the wrong that day, but somehow, that moment has grown over the years into something that cost Williams a major championship. Continue reading