Schüttler Serves Up Timely Omen for Steely Germans

Experienced German sportsmen have been having a good time of it this past week, and not just their artful footballers who take on Spain in tonight's European Championship final in Vienna. Thirty somethings Rainer Schüttler, Nicolas Kiefer and Tommy Haas were all in action at Wimbledon yesterday, reminding us that the nation that gave us Boris Becker remains one of the continent's leaders on the tennis court.

Schüttler, nine at the time, watched Becker win Wimbledon as a 17-year-old in 1985 and was inspired to take up the game. Nowhere near as gifted as the red head with the rocket serve, Schüttler, now 32, has made the most of his limited gifts, even getting to a grand-slam final when he lost to Andre Agassi at the 2003 Australian Open.

After a slump in form that saw him drop out of the world's top 100, Schüttler narrowly gained direct entry into this year's Wimbledon draw with a ranking of 94 and yesterday racked up his third victory, a 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 win over the tall and stylish Spaniard Guillermo García-López, to become the least-expected first-week survivor.

His progress has been a triumph of functionality over finesse. There are no flourishes, everything he does is simply motivated by the fierce desire, somehow or other, to stay in a rally for one shot more than his rival (a bit like the footballers, really). The big surprise was his five-set victory over James Blake, the ninth seed, in the second round when he came back from two sets to one down.

'I guess if I didn't believe I could still do it I wouldn't still play,' Schüttler said after dealing brusquely with García-López in just two hours. 'I was lucky against Blake a little bit but have played great in all three of my matches.'