For the third time in a year, the world of women's tennis bid farewell to a bona fide star.

Last year, it was Kim Clijsters, hanging up her racket at the age of 24.  Six months ago, Martina Hingis, the "Swiss Miss" of tennis, retired amidst a cloud of speculation revolving around her positive test for cocaine at Wimbledon in 2007, and then was served with a two year ban in January.  Today, Justine Henin, the top ranked player in the world, announced her retirement from the sport, just shy of her 26th birthday.

Henin made the announcement today at a press conference in Belgium, stating she had no sadness about leaving the sport that she had been dominant in over recent years.  She plans to focus more on charity work and on her tennis school now as she steps off the court for the last time. 

The retirement comes as a surprise to most, if not all, of the tennis world, as Henin was #1 in the world, and was a prohibitive favorite for the upcoming French Open at Roland Garros, where she is the three time defending champion, and winner of four of the last five Grand Slam events played on the red clay surface.  All told, Henin won seven Grand Slam titles among her 41 WTA Tour victories:  four French Opens, two US Opens, and an Australian Open title.  She also won the WTA Tour Championship twice and also took the gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Sydney.
She was unable to complete the career Grand Slam, never winning at Wimbledon despite two appearances in the final, falling in 2001 to Venus Williams, and again in 2006 to Amelie Mauresmo.

Henin was the top ranked player in tennis for 116 weeks in her career, and on March 10th of this year, became just the seventh female player to be ranked number one for twelve consecutive months.  After losing to Dinara Safina in the third round of the Qatar Telecom German Open in Berlin, she pulled out of the Italian Open stating fatigue.  In five previous matches with Safara, Henin was unbeaten, and had not dropped a set against her.

There are only three active players who Henin leaves the game with losing records against:  Venus Williams, who she won just 2 of 9 matches against, Serena Williams (6-7) and Lucie Safarova, who won the only match between the two head to head.  She was dominant against the majority of the top ten players in the world, as evidenced by these marks:  4-0 vs. Ana Ivanovic, 9-0 vs. Jelena Jankovic, 16-2 vs. Svetlana Kuznetsova, 3-0 vs. Anna Chekvetadze, 6-3 vs. Maria Sharapova, 3-2 vs. Daniela Hantuchova, and 3-1 vs. Marion Bartoli.

Against former top players, Henin was successful as well, going 12-10 versus Clijsters, 7-5 against Lindsay Davenport, 8-6 head to head with Mauresmo and 5-2 when taking on Jennifer Capriati.  Her overall record was 493-107 in 600 career matches, 130-24 on the biggest stages of them all, that being Grand Slam competition.

One has to wish Henin well with her future endeavors.  She stated, and was adamant, that this was a retirement, not a hiatus, and that she is done with competitive tennis.  The burning question now is, who will step up and fill the chasm left at the top with her departure?  Can Sharapova become the dominant player she was two years ago?  Will Ivanovic, Kuznetsova and Jankovic pick up their games?  Can Hantuchova play tennis as well as she captures the attention of males with her long legs? 

Or will tennis become the Williams' sisters show, and become nothing more than a soap opera and a second tier sport?  One has to hope for the sake of the game, that the former is more true than the latter, but as with all things, we'll have to wait and see.