Henman Grows Weary As Murray Grows in Stature

Tim Henman's foul language as he departed this year's Wimbledon at an earlier stage than he has for a decade sounded and looked suspiciously like contrived rage. Fearful that he should be seen to be surrendering meekly against the Russian Dmitry Tursunov, he opted for premeditated verbals where pre-eminent volleys once did the job. You just know, though, that retention is what comes naturally to the Henman clan. Telling ball-boys to get their heads out of their arses and the crowd to effing well make more noise is not really Timbo's thing.

What wasn't contrived was Henman's anger at the press conference afterwards when a television reporter came looking for that night's soundbite. This requires a far sharper goad than the one with which the written press, happy with lengthy answers to fill their columns, arm themselves.

The exchange, according to the official transcript of the conference, went like this:

TV reporter: There's obviously going to be speculation about your future at Wimbledon now.
Henman: Hmm.

TV reporter (still without his soundbite): Do you feel you can carry on?

Henman: Yeah.

TV reporter (still without his soundbite): Do you feel you still have a good Wimbledon in you?
Henman: Yeah.

TV reporter (still without his soundbite): No thoughts of quitting?

Henman: Um, no, no. I would think about it if all of you who are ninth-best in the world and below quit with me. But there wouldn't be many of you left, would there?

It had taken four jabs with the goad to bring down Henman's retentive wall. When it came down, it did so with a real flash of anger. For the first time on that long, oppressive afternoon, either on court or off, colour ran down the British number one's pale features like heavy rain down a window pane. He bristled. The TV reporter jotted something down. 'Gotcha', possibly.

Henman's determination to carry on is something he is perfectly entitled to do, and, as Jimmy Connors said afterwards: 'Maybe this defeat will light his fire, get his juices going.' The problem is that even if the fire does burn more fiercely and the juices flow more generously, it is what they are trying to heat up and lubricate that is the problem.

Henman is 30 and as such is older than anyone who has won Wimbledon since Arthur Ashe in 1975, and whether he likes it or not has the body of a 30-year-old tennis player who has been going around the tennis courts of the world for more than a decade. He remains remarkably athletic despite the punishment he has given his body, but the right shoulder is dodgy and he has a degenerative back problem.

In his two matches, he was struggling to reach even the average service speed of some of the young bucks. If his serve had the subtlety of, say, the one with which Pete Sampras used to confuse opponents or Roger Federer still does, Henman might be a more consistent player than he now is. But there was a time when it was a very effective blunt instrument and he has never been able to bring to it the disguise that his former coach Larry Stefanki tried to add. There is a school of thought that Stefanki's intervention was counterproductive, that it was a long-term source of harm to Henman's game.

As far as ever winning Wimbledon is concerned, Henman's problem is as much in his own head as anyone else's. He has said so many times how the grass and balls have changed, making the conditions slower and therefore inimical to his game, that the greater problem must be convincing him self that he can win the game's most venerable title than any of the doubters in the media who so upset him.

The fact is that Henman probably has a better chance now of winning one of the other three grand slams than he does Wimbledon. Clay, the surface of the French Open, places less of a premium on a big serve and hard courts, on which the Australian and US Opens are played, have that zip that Henman says Wimbledon no longer has.

Henman's defeat completed a wretched first week for British tennis and the Lawn Tennis Association are once again being held to account. Most of this criticism is uninformed. As this correspondent has said before, the really damning statistic was the one dug up by the Frenchman Patrice Hagelauer when he took over as the LTA's performance director in 1999 - barely 30 clubs out of 3,000 with a junior programme. The peak of British tennis talent was not so much the apex of a pyramid as the top floor of tallish apartment block built by a bunch of cowboys.

We must remain patient - and in the meantime enjoy the made-in-Spain Scot, Andy Murray.