Justine Henin admitted Maria Sharapova gave her no choice but to go for broke after fighting back to beat her old rival and reach the French Open fourth round.
Henin recovered from the loss of her first set at Roland Garros for five years to extend her winning run there to 24 matches courtesy of a 6-2 3-6 6-3 victory.
Four-time champion Henin looked in real danger of her first defeat in the tournament since 2004 when 12th seed Sharapova had three points for a double-break in the deciding set after the contest resumed this afternoon at one set all.
But the Belgian 22nd seed hit back to win five of the next six games and survive an enthralling two-hour, seven-minute encounter spread over two days on Philippe Chatrier Court.
The 27-year-old revealed afterwards she decided to go on the attack at 2-0, 0-40 down in the third set, having made numerous charges to the net at that time.
She said: "I had no choice. Sometimes when you're 0-0, you know you control a little bit.
"But when you're under pressure a little bit, you don't have any other choice."
Last night had seen Henin equal the French Open record of 40 consecutive sets before Sharapova stopped her breaking it by levelling the match.
That was after an atrocious start to the contest from the Russian, who had surrendered her serve twice as Henin moved 4-0 ahead.
But it was a different story this morning, with Sharapova picking up where she had left off yesterday.
Henin, playing her first Roland Garros since 2007 after coming out of retirement, said: "She started the set very good. She's a champion, so as soon as you give her the opportunities - if you play a little bit too short and you don't take the opportunities - she takes them."
Sharapova refused to be down on herself for letting her 0-40 lead slip but felt she should have done better in the next game, which saw her drop serve.
"At 2-1, I was a little bit more tentative than I was in the first three games," she said.
"She started being a little bit more aggressive.
"From the beginning, I felt like I was the one that was more aggressive of the two of us, and that kind of changed a little bit and changed the momentum of the match."
Henin's victory avenged her controversial defeat at the 2008 Australian Open, a match that proved her last at a grand slam before announcing her retirement.
She will now play seventh seed Samantha Stosur in round four.
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