Will there ever be another Justine Henin? Now that the shock over her inexplicable retirement at age 25 has subsided, that’s all that her fans, and fans of women's tennis at its most dynamic and varied, can hope for. This doesn’t mean the WTA needs a new Henin, exactly—it has survived plenty of retirements in the past, even Chris Evert’s—but it would be nice to think it's still possible for a young woman to put at least a couple of Henin’s stylistic elements together again. The tennis world is already going to be a lesser place without her backhand.

This subject came up yesterday when I was talking with a professional coach at the Open. He mentioned out of nowhere that he thought there might be a couple of “baby Justines” on the horizon. He said he thought the days of the power girls might be numbered and the pendulum was going to swing back toward all-court play, with Henin as the inspiration. This, as you might expect, was good news to me—too good to be believed.

The woman's name he dropped was Mariana Duque Marino of Colombia. I hadn’t heard of her before, but she reached the final of the French Open juniors last year, where she lost to Alize Cornet. Still, I was skeptical. She’s almost 19—future women’s champions are at least known quantities by that point—and has spent the last year deep in the tour’s minor leagues. She's ranked No 125.

However long the odds, though, any fan would be intrigued; there’s nothing more enjoyable than seeing a brand new talent for the first time. Duque Marino won her first round over Tamarine Tanasugarn, which earned her a match this morning against a far more accomplished 19-year-old, Agneiszka Radwanska of Poland. When I saw Marino warming up, it wasn’t Henin's name that came to mind, but Gabriela Sabatini's. Marino has the same long black hair, the John Wayne gait, and the big-loop, heavy-topspin forehand that she hits at shoulder level while falling backward. This wasn’t a cookie-cutter game. This was promising.

I liked Duque Marino’s serve as well. She has a more complicated motion than most women, but her athleticism allows her to keep the parts working together pretty smoothly. The result was a far superior, if more erratic and at times nervy, serve than Radwanska’s. Duque Marino got to 115 m.p.h. with her first one and has an honest-to-goodness kick on her second.

With all that, she went out and lost the first set 6-0. There’s no doubt Duque Marino is raw, which is not what you want to be against the cagey Radwanska, who feasts on inconsistent and inexperienced opponents. The weakest, and the most un-Sabatini-like, element of Duque Marino's game is her backhand. She has a two-hander, and most of its power and spin is generated with her left hand. This makes the stroke a little flippy and rushed; for what is essentially her rally shot, it’s not all that safe.

Today Duque Marino was also nervous. In the first set, she typically played the early points in a game well, got to 30-30, and then lost it from there. Radwanska, of course, wasn’t making life any easier for her by patiently pushing her side to side with her simple but solid ground strokes, then abruptly pulling her forward with well-concealed drop shots.

Everything changed after Duque Marino asked for a trainer early in the first set. She was told that she could be treated on the next changeover, but even before the medic arrived she was a different player, much looser and more confident. The idea that she was having physical troubles, that she could excuse herself just a bit, relieved some pressure in her head. Duque Marino immediately began to hit out, and you could see that the athleticism and talent are there. She sent Radwanska jumping after her topspin forehands in the corners; showed off her wheels by tracking down Radwanska’s drop shots; snapped off a confident slice overhead; and put together a slick swinging volley-drop volley combination. By the middle of the set she had her serve consistently around 110 m.p.h.; Radwanska’s came in around 90. Marino went up 5-3 and served for it at 5-4. This was looking very promising.

Radwanska, however, hasn't become No. 11 in the world without learning how to salvage a match and trip up a hot opponent. She makes up for her lack of power with an unflappable caginess. At 4-5 she suddenly attacked the net on the first two points, both times to Duque Marino’s backhand. She won both points, broke at love, and went on to end the match in a tiebreaker. When it came to the crunch, Radwanska not only stopped missing, she got more creative. I had gone to see her opponent and come away more impressed with Radwanska than ever.

How impressive was Duque Marino? And how can you tell whether a player has Top 10 or Top 20 or Top 30 potential anyway? Walking out to Court 11 today to see her, I remembered going to the same court for the same reason back in 1999. That year I wrote a piece for TENNIS Magazine profiling an up-and-comer named Justine Henin. I watched her lose her first-round match to Amelie Mauresmo 6-1, 6-4. Henin had been nervous to start, but had started to open up on that soon-to-be-famous backhand in the second set. On the plus side, she already seemed more explosive than Mauresmo, who had reached the final of the Australian Open earlier that year. Henin’s downside, obviously, was her size. This was the period when the Williams sisters were overtaking Martina Hingis, and the word was that there would never be a 5-foot-6 women’s champion again. Well, there was.

To assess a young player, you watch for unteachable aspects of the game like build, foot speed, racquet-head speed, balance, etc. I remember thinking that Henin’s backhand, even when she was shanking it early in her match against Mauresmo, had a tremendous range of motion that made it seem like a special stroke right away. Nothing struck me that way with Duque Marino, but there are positive signs. She’s got pop on her serve and she hits her forehand the way Henin did—inside-out, with topspin, and with a guy’s form and explosiveness. She runs well, too, but seeing her move today only underscored how exceptional—unparalleled—Henin was in this aspect of the game. If there’s anything that’s going to be tough for a young player to match in Henin’s game, it’s going to be her raw speed around the court. In other words, whatever your strokes look like, being the Next Justine Henin is not going to be easy.

Whether or not Duque Marino is a future Top Tenner—and her results aren’t as anywhere close to what you’d like to see from a 19-year-old—she was still a pleasure to watch today. Tennis fans willing to stray from the big arenas and back to Court 11 were rewarded with a view of women’s tennis that went beyond the bash-and-grunt cookie-cutter. Radwanska looked like a modern-day Chris Evert; Duque Marino a less-flashy Sabatini. Neither will add up to a Justine Henin, but they showed that there are still varieties of style available to young women players, and to fans willing to search for it.

The best moment of the day was the simplest: After finally breaking through to win her first game early in the second set, Duque Marino flashed a big smile of relief. Now she could enjoy herself. Apparently, she did. In the interview room afterward, she looked surprisingly small as she stood with huge white bandages around both of her blistered feet, her fierce tan lines showing at her ankles. When she was asked whether it was hard to play at the Open, in New York, Duque Marino shook her head and flashed the same smile she had flashed on court. “I was happy playing here, very happy.” That’s all we need to know for now.