Tennis French Open, women's final: Like a commercial, choreographed and packaged to sell the technical wizardry of tennis, so Justine Henin-Hardenne fought to the final the hardest way possible and then made it look all so frightfully easy against Kim Clijsters.

The first Belgian ever to win a Grand Slam event gave up only two sets in her seven rounds over the fortnight at Roland Garros, one of those to world number one Serena Williams.

In cutting compatriot Clijsters down 6-0, 6-4 in barely over an hour, the 21-year-old became only the third woman in the open era (1968) to defeat the number one and two seeds on route to winning the French Open.

Clijsters, traditionally the mentally stronger of the two players, appeared the more tense as Henin-Hardenne bullied and forced her much where she liked throughout the first set.

It was a breathless display of dominance and controlled positional play from someone whose power belies a lightly muscled physique. Just 23 minutes elapsed before Clijsters handed it over, with barely a significant act of protest.

While the Centre Court had bubbled over before the match, the crowd became strangely muted as the complete ease with which Henin-Hardenne was winning showed little sign of losing its momentum. How effectively she imposed her own shape on the match was also borne out in the post-match figures.

Clijsters hit just two winners in the first set, a backhand and a point at the net. In total, the younger of the two players played just ten winners in the entire match, five from the forehand, one backhand, one drop shot and three net points.

While Clijsters did create possibilities she couldn't grasp any. If she trawls back through the match that's what might hurt her most. Twice she had her opponent love-40 down in the first set and twice she let her back to win the game.

"Yeah, it was love-40 twice in the first. I came back and mentally that was very important for me," said Henin-Hardenne.

Although Henin-Hardenne then streaked to a 3-0 lead in the second set and the groans in the crowd grew as the "appalling vista" of a double bagel (6-0, 6-0) looked possible, Clijsters gathered herself. Breaking service in the eighth game to level the set 4-4, she appeared to have finally shaken off her torpor.

It was a short-lived aberration. Losing the first three points on serve for 0-40, the unsure Clijsters immediately handed back the break to allow Henin-Hardenne serve out for the match.

"She's very accurate," said Clijsters. "Even when she is defending . . . she can still get the balls maybe five or ten centimetres off the baseline. That's why she's so good on clay court. Of course I was nervous, maybe a bit more than normal, but not that it was influencing my tennis. In this tournament, I think I haven't played my best tennis."

For Henin-Hardenne it is a return to her childhood and a realisation of a dream she permitted herself as a 10-year-old watching the 1992 final between Monica Seles and Steffi Graf with her mother from the side opposite the umpire's chair.

A year later her mother was dead and the young Henin, remarkably, took charge of her two brothers and sister under hugely difficult circumstances as her father, Jose, was around less and less. He was not present yesterday. Of course dreaming did not get her here.

"The pathway is not over," she said with typical menace. "I have to have other objectives. Winning one Grand Slam was one objective. I want to progress even more. I'm playing good on grass. But just because I won the French Open does not mean to say I'll win Wimbledon this month. The others are very, very strong, especially on grass."

The Williams sisters will, naturally, be waiting in the short grass. For Henin-Hardenne, it will be another chance to see how she can match up against the world number one.