Isn't Henman Worth at Least a Snippet of News?

I am not a top television news presenter, never having had sufficient supplies of hair lacquer, so maybe I am not qualified to ask this question, but here goes anyway. What, in heaven's name, were they playing at on the 12 noon news on BBC1 on Saturday?

After all the innocent amusement, snide jokes and, let us be honest, boffo ratings days Tim Henman has given them, the BBC could not find time for even a tiny item about Tim's defeat at the US Open on Friday night, which brought to a close his grand slam career. For a bulletin sandwiched between the world athletics championships and Football Focus, and therefore including a fair number of sports fans among those present, it was a glaring omission.

It is not as if it was a particularly packed bulletin. There was a piece about a fence being erected to protect Asian leaders at a conference in Sydney which could easily have gone, and a long item about the government's new gambling legislation, helpfully illustrated with lots of stock footage of fruit machines and roulette wheels for those viewers unaware of exactly what gambling is. On which subject - let us leave Tim to one side for a moment - I received a bizarre email from my friends at Sky Bet, whom I honour with a little modest business from time to time, in connection with the government's new rules.

Among the new services - which I assume the legislation now obliges my bookmaker to offer - is a "cooling off option. So you can have a 24-hour break whenever you wish." Well thanks, but I am already taking breaks of weeks, sometimes months, between bets, and without asking the permission of the government. The only cooling off option that would work for me would be similar to those you get when you sign a credit agreement where you have a week to change your mind. If I were granted a week to reconsider my lousy bets, at the end of which I could tell my bookie I felt them ill-advised, and can I have my money back, that would be progress. The other new option the law now offers me is something called "self exclusion", which lets me close my account "at any time for a minimum of six months up to five years or for good" (I thought I could do this anyway) during which time I will not be able to return to Sky Bet, and "we will do all we can to prevent you from opening another account".

How? Presumably by flashing a message reading "LOSER" on your screen, accompanied by scornful laughter, every time you try to log on. Call me an old cynic but from my angle these "safeguards" built into what is essentially a relaxation of the laws governing gambling, and consequently a chance for the government to raise more revenue, are covered in my thesaurus by words such as flim-flam, cant and hypocrisy, although I prefer the word bullshit. Where was the government protecting me from myself when I was backing Henman to win grand slam events?

But I bear no malice - towards Tim, that is - and cleave to my view that he is the best British tennis player ever. People will raise the name of Fred Perry, but his achievements came in an era when they played with a wooden ball, players wore long crinoline dresses - even the men - and a manservant strolled on to court between points to serve tea and cakes. There was no Federer, Sampras, or energy drinks in those days. No sports psychologists, specialist coaches, and hothoused 16-year-old Croatians to contend with. Perry's was a gentler era - apart from things like the burning of the Reichstag and the Spanish civil war obviously - in which to play. And Perry never had to suffer the slings and arrows of not especially outrageous comedians. Only last week a panelist on a BBC topical news quiz came out with some lame gag about Henman announcing his retirement, but not actually retiring because he wasn't quite able to make it.

Sky Sports, on the other hand, gave Henman's departure what my erstwhile colleague Ron Atkinson called the full gun. All the way through the fourth set of the match against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, when it became apparent there was nothing left in Henman's locker, commentator Mark Petchey continued with the valedictions: "This could potentially be the last changeover Henman has at a major championship. Tsonga here trying to end the career of Tim Henman, and what a career it has been, the man who WAS British tennis for the best part of a decade" and so on, which was a little rough on Tsonga, who deserved credit for some magnificent tennis; but at least the occasion was being recognized.

In fairness to BBC News, Henman still has Davis Cup matches to play later this month when there will no doubt be tearful farewells on which to report, and he is likely to re-emerge quickly in some kind of administrative/coaching role, as the Trevor Brooking, if you like, of British tennis. He already has the voice.