New York, NY (AHN) - After losing to Justine Henin and getting knocked out of her third consecutive grand slam tournament by the swift and accurate Belgian, Serena Williams showed more attitude and feistiness toward the media after the match than at any time during her eye-opening loss to Henin, the world's No. 1 ranked player.

On Tuesday, Henin beat Williams7-6 (3), 6-1 in a quarterfinal round contest to move another step closer to winning her second grand slam tournament of the year.

Henin will play the winner of Wednesday night's match between Jelena Jankovic and Venus Williams on Friday in a semifinal showdown.

Speaking to the media after the match, Williams was visibly agitated and borderline rude to reporters who questioned her, adding that she might not have shown up at all but had to because she didn't want to pay the possible $10,000 fine.

"I really don't feel like talking about it," Williams said. "I can't explain that [result] right now.

Williams was way off base when she tried to cheapen Henin's win by incorrectly saying,

"I just think she made a lot of lucky shots, and I made a lot of errors."

Henin said afterward, that she knew exactly what to do to beat Williams.

"Tactically, it was very clear in my head what I had to do," Henin said. "It's very important to do it from the first point to the end. She loves to have control of the rallies. She loves to be in the court. She doesn't like to be under pressure, especially on the forehand side."

Williams, who had never lost a match to Henin on hard courts, was thoroughly outplayed though the first set was fairly close.

"There's nothing [negative] to say about my win today," Henin said. "She's at home. She expected a lot of things here. She had a lot of motivation. So that gives a lot of satisfaction."

Williams said her recent inactivity was not to blame for her loss to Henin.

"No," she said. "I don't think it affected me. I mean, I don't think it did. Maybe it did.

"You guys, I think, watched it. Maybe you can analyze it better."

The diminutive Henin, the smallest player physically in the top 10, said overcomeing adversity is what she's been all about her entire career.

"I proved so many things," she said. "I'm really proud of what I did this year. It's been great because I came back from a very tough situation personally. It was tough to come back professionally and just do my best -- and that's what I did.

"I really had a lot of fun, and that's really important."