“And it was very good.”  For the first time in three matches on hardcourts, Henin was able to solve Serena Williams. For her effort, she might get the chance to play her older sister Venus in the semifinals. Venus will play her quarterfinal match tonight against No. 3 Jelena Jankovic.  “If I have to play Venus, it will be a good challenge for me to play both sisters in the same tournament,” Henin said. No player has beaten the Williams sisters back to back since Martina Hingis did it in 2001 at the Australian Open.  “Every match is a final for me now,” Henin said. “There is a lot of expectations, for sure.”  Henin, ranked No. 1 for 80 weeks during her career, has won at least one title in a Grand Slam event every year since 2003, which she concluded by winning her first United States Open title.  The Australian Open was the one Grand Slam event that Serena Williams won this year. It was also the one major that Henin missed this year, while she was seperating from her husband of four years, Pierre-Yves Hardenne. Serena Williams, who was unseeded, won the tournament during a mesmerizing run against the best the women’s Tour seemed to offer. In March, Williams continued her dominance by beating Henin in three sets in the final at Key Biscayne, Fla.  Henin’s year truly began to turn around in April, when her older brother, David, was involved in a car accident that left him in a coma. Henin had been estranged from David, her other brother, Thomas, and her father, José, while she was married. But she came to the hospital room when David woke up and began an emotional family reconciliation. Henin went on the win the French Open in June.  Last night, she received text messages from her family back in Belgium immediately after the match. “It’s just an amazing feeling,” Henin said of her family’s reconciliation. “There’s a lot of love. That gives a lot of confidence for the rest of my life, not only for my career.”  If Henin is playing unfettered, painting the lines, serving down the middle and befuddling her opponents, Williams has been out of sorts since spraining her left thumb at Wimbledon in the round before losing to Henin.  This was her first match since Wimbledon, and she dismissed the notion that her fitness was a problem, even though she appeared to be laboring in the second set. Asked to explain what went wrong, she said: “No, I can’t. I’m sorry. Any more questions?”  From the opening game, Henin never stopped attacking. She broke Williams’s serve to begin the match. In the sixth game of the first set, when Williams had two break point chances, Henin swung at a volley that sailed long, then let loose a scream that rattled the stadium.  Henin had a set point and was serving for the match at 5-4 when Williams’s backhand winner evened the set. Williams yelled, “Come on!” But something was missing.  “She wasn’t herself out there,” said her mother and coach, Oracene Price. “It was a scream, but it wasn’t the right scream. It’s not the one, ‘Oooh, I got it now, I’m coming at you.’ ”  Williams was able to hold off another set point when Henin was serving at 6-5, sending the first set into a tie breaker. But after that, Williams was powerless against Henin, who struck 30 winners to Williams’s 17.  More than those statistics, Henin has earned the respect of a pair of tennis Hall of Famers.  “Justine is one the few players I’d pay to watch,” said Martina Navratilova. Comparing Henin to Roger Federer, the top-ranked men’s player, Navratilova added: “To me, she and Roger are the same type of player, she’s just the women’s version.”  At 5-foot-5 ¾, Henin does not tower over her larger opponents, but finds the torque within her frame.  “Pound for pound, she’s like Rosie Casals when we played or Tracy Austin,” Billie Jean King said as she walked into the stadium for last night’s match.  Even as tennis technology has changed and players have grown larger, Henin has continued to adapt and dominate.  “I start to trust myself much more than in the past because it hasn’t been luck for me,” Henin said. “I don’t have anything to prove except enjoy my tennis on the court and try to stay healthy and enjoy every moment of it.”  For one night, at least, she could.  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: As Henin Dictates Play, Williams Can Just Scream. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
For the third straight time in a quarterfinal of a Grand Slam event, Justine Henin overwhelmed Serena Williams, this time by a score of 7-6 (3), 6-1 to advance to the semifinals.