From the publishers of THE HINDU VOL.30 :: NO.35 :: Sep. 01, 2007 • Contents
	TENNIS An exceptionally talented player Tim Henman could have won a Grand Slam if he had held a bigger weapon in his armoury, says Steve Bierley. The overwhelming emotion after Tim Henman announced his retirement was one of relief. Nobody wanted to see him maunder on in a state of denial, as he has for most of this year, and it would be wonderful to think the tide of nostalgia and affection that will greet his final appearance at Wimbledon might lift him and the whole of the British Davis Cup team to victory in their world group qualifier against Croatia on No. 1 Court. Whatever happens then, and so much will depend on the fitness and form of Andy Murray, Henman has experienced enough highs and lows at the All England Club to deal with the occasion in his usual professional way, although it would be sad to see him exit on a losing note. To the ill-informed, Henman, Wimbledon and defeat go hand in hand, with those wailing seagull cries of “Come on Tim” punctuating his losses to the point of desolation. And that is unfair. The problem for Henman has always been, at the very highest level, that he was a lightweight trying to batter down heavyweights. It was the essence of his game that he was forced to play eyeballs out against the leading players, because essentially he never had a truly big weapon in his armoury. His serve, until his back went, could be vicious, but it was never consistent and, more pertinently, never natural. Had Henman possessed Greg Rusedski's serve he may well have won a Slam. That he did not have such a serve cost him dear in terms of his ultimate ambition to win Wimbledon. He spoke of it as being his destiny, indeed in those heady days of the late 1990s, when he twice lost to Pete Sampras in the semifinals, he was prepared to talk publicly of winning Slam titles, plural. Yet Wimbledon aside, it was not until 2004 that he managed to get beyond the last 16 of the other three. He had always insisted that he would play his best tennis later in his career, and when he reached the semifinals at both Roland Garros and Flushing Meadows three years ago he proved himself correct to some extent. History may view his semifinal on the red clay of Paris as his finest performance. In truth he should have beaten Guillermo Coria of Argentina, just as he should have beaten Croatia's Goran Ivanisevic in their protracted, rain-affected Wimbledon semifinal in 2001. The fact that Henman failed was not that he lacked ambition or resolution, rather that his inability to close out both matches highlighted mental insecurities and frailties that a great champion barely has need to consider. He was an exceptionally talented player whose style of play — notably his exquisite touch at the net — garnered him an increasing number of friends and admirers. He was never really a true serve and volleyer like Sweden's Stefan Edberg, whom he admired so much, because his second serve was not good enough, but his ability at the net singled him out in an era of power domination from the baseline. The middle-class tag that was fixed to him in times of defeat, notably at Wimbledon, was an irrelevance. You had only to hear him swear and cuss with the best on court to get an idea of the fierce competitive spirit burning within him that had little to do with his upbringing. If the charge of being too nice were to be levelled against him, it was that he should really have severed his links with his first coach, David Felgate, long before he did. Of the 28 finals he reached, he won 11, which he will consider a disappointing ratio, yet all of those titles, bar one, were won abroad, underlying his international competitiveness in a sport which so many of the British public still view as being restricted to Wimbledon and the weeks leading up to it. It was hardly his fault that every year the BBC lost all international perspective whenever the gates of the All England Club swung open in late June. Henman has played in a decade of two great champions, Sampras and Roger Federer, and when the window of opportunity opened in 2001 he encountered an inspired Ivanisevic. The next year he reached the Wimbledon semifinals for the fourth and final time although he was never in with a chance against Australia's Lleyton Hewitt who loved nothing more than a target at the net. Henman's last title came almost four years ago in Paris when he won his one and only Masters Series event, second only to the Slams. Strangely, given his Wimbledon exploits, he never won a grass court title. Unarguably he was a more talented all-round player than Rusedski, yet it was the latter who reached a Slam final, losing at Flushing Meadows to Australia's Pat Rafter in 1997, and that will always be a source of regret for Henman. That said, he has always worked with exceptional diligence off court, and has been his own man, underlined by his succinct and honest summing up of his career. “There are many people who don't win Grand Slams. I would say I was a good player who worked hard and gave everything he got to his profession. I don't think you can ask for more than that.” © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2007 Printer friendly page   Send this article to Friends by E-Mail Contents • Daily Sports • The Hindu • Business Line • Frontline • Publications • eBooks • Images Copyright © 2007 Sportstar Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of Sportstar.