LONDON -- Break up Belgium!

Or at least break up the Belgian waffles, the brace of twin tennis terrors (distaff division) who have broken through big-time and on their own in this Grand Slam season. First Kim Clijsters, 18, put Jennifer Capriati on alert in the French Open final -- taking her to within two points of disaster before losing that 12-10 classic climactic set. Then on Thursday, backhanding her way out of nowhere and into the semifinals at the All-England Club, came one Justine Henin, 19.

Appearing all of 4-foot-4, not to mention at least 44 pounds under her enormous white ballcap, all Henin did was rise from a dead start, slap that glorious trademark backhand shot -- with one hand -- and in the process slap the wondrous Capriati right out of Wimbledon.

The scoreline read 2-6, 6-4, 6-2, but it was much weirder than that. First there's that weird pronunciation of her name -- En-Ah, if you want to work on your sophomore French. Then there's the fact that the girl may be actually 5-5, 125 pounds but with her bony frame and no visible sign of muscle, looks more like a skater or a gymnast. Or Ally McBeal on lettuce and bean curd.

Additionally bizarre, of course, is that none of the veteran observers in the sport seem to have ever seen such a backhand as Mme. En-Ah can cock, spring and whale to all the distant reaches of the greensward. Gabriela Sabatini? Hers was a brushcut looper with nowhere near the penetration. Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf? More slice than topspin. Evonne Goolagong? Wood racquet-propelled, wimpy soft stuff. Ken Rosewall? Justine would justly kick serious rear, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-style.

Sort of like what Henin did to Capriati on another scorching hot day on Centre Court, a place where Henin had never set foot before. However, after she squelched her nerves and got used to the place -- "It's a really, really big stadium ... the bounce was different ... everything changed ... I was little bit afraid," she said later -- the lightweight lady from Liege simply started attacking with that thrashing backhand and cruelly tore the American Dream (namely, the possibility of Capriati sweeping all four major championships) from Jennifer's grasp.

In the beginning, hurrying along as is her wont, Capriati looked like she would blow out the pretender in the time it took to pack a box lunch -- which Henin sorely needed. Blistered in the first set, the Belgian's foot blisters acted up early in the second. She had to call for a trainer. She even thought about quitting. "It's really painful. It's horrible," said Henin. "But the trainer, she change a little bit my tape. I kept the pain ... But I had a lot of courage to continue."

And how. In the fourth game of the second, instead of backpedaling and waiting to take a lob on the bounce, Henin wound up and delivered a winning overhead that might have bounced all the way to the Thames. She had her range and pace back. The game was on. Mix-mastering those fierce backhands with some sliced junkballs that coaxed Capriati into the net; rushing in between points as quickly as The Capster likes to do, Henin broke for 3-2, was broken back but then broke again with some more breathtaking crosscourt daggers from her backhand side and served out the second set -- by which time Jennifer knew she was in trouble.

"I tried to be more patient," Henin said. "I played a lot with my slice, and she didn't like it. After that I was more aggressive than her. I went to the net. I served better. I think she doesn't like to play against me because I try to stay in the court and be aggressive."

Indeed, Henin had given Capriati all she wanted in the Berlin semifinals in May, losing 6-2, 4-6, 2-1 only when she had to retire with an injury. That came after she had whip-sawed in straight sets none other than Venus Williams, whom she will face in the championship match here.

"I know she's a good player. But maybe I thought it was going to be easy. Maybe I just lost my concentration there," said Jen later in a lavender tie-dye outfit, as glowing and cheery in defeat as she had been in her victory run. "I backed off a little bit ... She just made a complete turnaround, like a different player, and she was just going for it, like all or nothing. And she was on."

Henin was on in the semis of the French, as well, leading her country-teen Clijsters, 6-2, with three points for a 5-2 lead in the second, and a place in her first Grand Slam final, before she admitted to losing her nerve. So Justin might have been the first Belgian belle to try to stop The Capster Slam. But: "The French Open is far away from here now. But it was an experience," she said. "I just want not to forget that."

Even at 19, Henin -- with her narrow features, intense eyes and a chin out of the Dick Tracy comic strip -- has been toughened up for these occasions. Her mother, Francoise, is dead. She is estranged from her father, Jose. She lives alone -- or, sometimes, with a fianc&actue;. "Justine won't answer questions on her family," said the press moderator after the match. "We'll just keep it to tennis."

Which Henin did in spectacular fashion to begin the third set. A double fault and three angry Capriati errors gave her the first game at love in, literally, a minute. "Maybe I was mad that I lost ... or couldn't believe I lost the second," said Jennifer. But then Henin -- as they say in Brit-land, on song -- swept eight of the next nine points, breaking again for 3-0, merely crushing the ball past a bewildered Capriati who was, said former Wimbledon champ Virginia Wade on the BBC, "in a mental fog."

Capriati had an important breaker in the next game, but Henin pressed her again and Jen basically bricked a backhand almost wide of the doubles court. One chance was gone. The next came -- and went -- at 4-1 when rain interrupted the match for 22 minutes and Jennifer had an opportunity, theoretically at least, to be instructed by her dad/coach, Stefano, in the locker room not to hit to Henin's backhand.

But when the players came back out, it didn't matter. Where Clijsters' power game had failed in the crunch in Paris, Henin's more varied style prevailed here. "A loss is a loss," Capriati said. "You feel disappointed, but it helps you lost to somebody who played well."

That's becoming a habit for Henin against Americans, not to mention in America. Male adolescents on the U.S. side of the pond will bitterly recall her in 1999 upsetting Anna Kournikova -- whoever that is -- in Philadelphia, and in the 2000 U.S. Open upsetting Kournikova again to break into the world's top 50 for the first time.

At the start of 2001, this lean, mean, backhand-blasting machine -- "I don't mind about my size. I proved that we don't have to be very strong to win matches," Henin said -- turned heads by winning back to back Australian titles in Queensland and Canberra. Then she previewed her stunning performance here by capturing a grass-court tournament at Rosmalen, Holland, where she avenged the French Open loss by beating Clijsters.

It has been Capriati's year. But Thursday her streak came to an end against a famished-looking sprite named En-Ah.

"A magic day for me," said the winner.

Which was a backhanded compliment all the way.

Curry Kirkpatrick is covering Wimbledon for ESPN The Magazine, E-mail him at curry.kirkpatrick@espnmag.com.