Calling Time: Henin and Sorenstam Retire

For sports fans, there's nothing more disappointing than to see a career end before we want it to. This week, the world learned that two soon would. Belgian tennis player Justine Henin and Swedish golfer Annika Sorenstam both announced their retirements. Sorenstam, a career Grand Slam winner, is 37. Henin, a seven-time Grand Slam champion and current world No. 1, is 25. Neither plays a sport in which youth is at a premium. So it is difficult not to feel cheated: we will never again see Henin's spry figure unleashing shots with such a variety of spins that she made the slugging behemoths of women's tennis suffer death by a thousand slices. Sorenstam's cool accuracy and composure will soon be lost to us, too.

An athlete's battle against time alternates between the immediate and the protracted: one final shot before the buzzer, one last season before the legs give out. How best to handle the specter of inevitable defeat among athletes accustomed to winning is a cause for debate. We balance our admiration for those who walk away at their best (Bobby Jones, Bjorn Borg) with the affection felt for those who soldier on, joints creaking, and displaying a vulnerability to which we can unexpectedly relate (Arnold Palmer, Andre Agassi).

To Henin and Sorenstam, an athlete's career is in many ways no different from any other. "I have a lot of dreams, I want to live and I'm getting married," Sorenstam said. Henin echoed: "This is the end of a child's dream ... It is my life as a woman that starts now." The world has always admired northern European countries for their work-life balance, so we can hardly begrudge a famous Swede for saying she wants to start a family, or the planet's best-known Belgian for simply craving a rest.

But they will be missed. It is human nature to wish our lives and careers to be marked by unbroken ascent. But deep down, we know they won't be; decline — terminal, indeed — comes to us all.

Watching a Henin crosscourt backhand hitting the line, or a towering iron shot from Sorenstam plonking softly, with a little backspin, onto a green, the world seemed to stand still. It didn't, of course. All things come to an end.