THE SUZANNE LENGLEN Trophy was presented by Justine Henin, who has just turned 26 and retired from the game.

She gave it to her successor as champion at Roland Garros and as world No 1, Ana Ivanovic. How different it probably would have been had Henin not decided to retire a few weeks ago. After all, she won the title last year without dropping a set and thrashed Ivanovic in the final. Furthermore, retired or not, she remains the best in the world, and will be until her match-fitness has ebbed away.

In the absence of Henin, four times the winner, and with the premature defeats of Serena and Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova, this was a championship that was short of class and up for grabs. Several contestants should be kicking themselves for they may not get another chance of a Grand Slam victory, but Ivanovic took her chance. She only dropped one set during the fortnight, and won with some ease yesterday. Most of all, she deserved it because she did not collapse in a ragged bundle of nerves as she did in the final last year when she won only three games.

The last memorable and really well contested final of the French Open was the three-set epic in 2001 when Jennifer Capriati beat Kim Clijsters 12-10 in the final set. Since then, several of the finals have been afflicted by one or both participants being too nervous to play their best game.

It was important this time, above all, that Ivanovic and Dinara Safina should produce a worthy contest if not a classic. Unfortunately, Safina was not consistent enough to seriously contemplate winning the title. She did not freeze and she fought hard but her mistakes condemned her. Still, she can console herself with the thought that she has had a great adventure in Paris. Twice during the championship, she came back from a set and 5-2 down, saving match points as well, against Sharapova and Elena Dementieva. Those were two good scalps as well as escapes, but they took their toll.

“This time I didn’t have the fire to come back,” Safina said. “I was tired mentally and physically. My body could not do it any more. I wasn’t nervous. I just needed to be fresher. So I was always just missing and what I had to do to her, she did to me.”

As a result, exchanges of high quality were rare. Indeed only one exceptional rally lives in the memory and excited the crowd to prolonged applause and encouragement. It contained a bit of everything, searing groundstrokes, lobs and smashes, unlikely recoveries and a delicious dropshot by Ivanovic to finish it off. She did very well to race forward to get that ball, which told its own story: she was the faster woman, the better mover.

As happens too often in the women’s game, the styles of the two finalists were identical, so that they were most easily distinguished by their size – Safina the bigger – and their outfits, peach for Ivanovic, white with blue trim for Safina. They both hit hard and flat, as if schooled on hard courts, single-handed on the forehand, double-handed on the backhand. Excursions to the net were rare, and court craft was represented only by the dropshot. It is formula tennis and their expertise is testament to countless of hours of repetition and drills through childhood and adolescence. At the end of it all, Ivanovic proved the better.

Safina’s brother, Marat, who won the US Open in 2000 and the Australian Open in 2005, was not present, which was a disappointment for his sister. He is in England, preparing for Wimbledon. Or perhaps not preparing for Wimbledon, for he is a creature of mood. She showed a few flashes of the family temperament, twice bashing her racket on the ground in anger with herself, but not enough of his mercurial ability. He also hits double-handed on the backhand but has never looked a manufactured player.

Chewing gum, Safina paid tribute to her coach, Zeljko Krajan. “If someone had said to me at the start of the year that I would be in the final of the French, I would have said, ‘are you kidding?’” she explained. “But my coach believed in me. He kept telling me I am a good player, even after bad losses. I know I must work harder. I must be a perfectionist.”

In that resolution, she is certainly different from her brother. He has talent to waste and cheerfully wastes it on the grounds that he has plenty of money and all he desires without being a slave to the practice-court. He likes to go fishing, to have romantic liaisons, and he has climbed the sixth highest mountain in the Himalayas.

Ivanovic, naturally and engagingly, was so thrilled that she giggled with happiness, her words spilling out in a torrent. “I’m trying to speak slow,” she apologised, “but I’m so excited. I’m proud of my efforts. I knew I had to stay very calm and I kept my composure. I’m very, very happy.”

It was good to see her in such a blissful state. In her first Grand Slam final last year, she froze. In her second, at the Australian Open in January, she was upset that she did not do herself justice and had several sleepless nights afterwards. This time, she had learnt the lesson. “Obviously I was nervous but I tried to enjoy it,” she said. “I wanted to make one more step and win a title. But the last two Grand Slams were great learning experiences for me. I’m only 20 and this was my third final already so that took some pressure off me. There were a lot of emotions inside but I tried not to think of the occasion, just to concentrate on my tennis. Winning a title like this was my goal since I was a little kid and to achieve it is so thrilling. I love the game and this is the best reward I can get.

“It’s obviously very sweet and nice to reach the No 1 spot as well. But I have to make sure I still work hard on the court. A lot of players will be playing their best tennis against me now.”

These are heady days for Serbian tennis. As well as Ivanovic, Jelena Jankovic is among the top women, while Novak Djokovic is currently the No 3 male player in the world. His victory in this year’s Australian Open, the first Grand Slam win for Serbia, was an inspiration. “Before I went on court, I thought if Novak can do it then I can too,” Ivanovic said.

Her final tribute was rightly for Henin. “We lost a great champion when Justine retired,” Ivanovic said. “Seeing her in the crowd made me feel really good. I thought maybe I can be like her, I can win a title. It hurt a lot when I lost to her last year but I learnt a lot from her, from how she handled herself in that final. So it was really thrilling when she handed me the trophy. She said well done, you really deserve it.”

She did deserve it, but whether she would have won if Henin had been playing rather than watching is doubtful. And whether she can go on to become one of the greats is to be determined. For the moment, for certain, she is the happiest woman in Paris.