Classic Wimbledon report: Henman loses nerve and his best chance goes begging | Sport | The Guardian
Henman loses nerve and his best chance goes begging
Stephen Bierley
Monday 9 July 2001 07.05 EDT
First published on Monday 9 July 2001 07.05 EDT
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It was a lottery and Goran Ivanisevic held the winning ticket. "This will come down to one or two shots," said David Felgate, Tim Henman's coach until April this year, just before the semi-final resumed, "and both players have to get their heads around that." In the end Ivanisevic held his nerve the better, and his serve, that most lethal of two-edged weapons, was decisive, as it was always likely to be in such a tight situation.
Had this three-day semi-final finished on Friday, when it began, Henman might, just might, have won. But on Saturday, when only 51 minutes were possible because of the rain, he crucially lost the fourth set on the tie-break, and when the match resumed yesterday at 1.15pm he was 3-2 down in the fifth.
He held his serve for 3-3, and then a double fault by Ivanisevic and a solid backhand by Henman briefly, flatteringly, raised hopes of him playing Australia's Pat Rafter in today's midday final. In a hole, Ivanisevic did what he invariably does and aced his way to safety. And Henman cracked. No other word for it.
A first-service ace belied his growing loss of nerve, but then an 89mph second serve, which Ivanisevic crushed, potently indicated his inner turmoil. Two more feeble serves and Henman was 15-40 down and virtually out. He dredged up one final effort for deuce, but then a double fault, the second serve being feet long, followed by another weak and watery first serve saw Ivanisevic 5-3 up and all but home.
"When I served for the match I was so tight that my arm felt like 10 kilos. I felt sorry for Tim because of all the pressure he has been put through, but this was destiny. God wants me to win. He sent the rain on Friday," said Ivanisevic, who won 7-5, 6-7, 0-6, 7-6, 6-3. It was Henman's eighth defeat in his last nine five-set matches, a further indication of his frailty under extreme pressure.
He continues to believe that it is his destiny to win the Wimbledon title. "I certainly feel with my game that I'm better than the vast majority of players on grass. In my heart I know I will win."
It is a laudable ambition, although if his professional tennis career is taken out of the grass-court context there is little accumulated evidence to suggest that the 26-year-old Oxford-born player will ever emulate Fred Perry, three times a Wimbledon winner, or even Bunny Austin, the last British player to reach the men's singles final in 1938.
In six years Henman has won only seven titles, lost a further 12 finals, never progressed beyond the last 16 of the other three grand slam tournaments in Melbourne, Paris and New York, and in 43 attempts to win one of the nine major titles outside the slams has reached only one final, which he lost, two semi-finals and five quarter-finals.
It is not the sort of record that encourages thoughts of a grand slam title, and those who watch Henman throughout the year on all surfaces, though saddened by yesterday's defeat, were hardly surprised. He is not a big-occasion winner. The cruel would label him a bottler.
Even at Wimbledon, it is difficult to imagine him having a better chance than he had this year to reach the final. Ranked No 11 in the world, he was bumped up to No 6 seed; apart from his first match, against the Russian qualifier Artem Derepasko, he always played on centre court, his self-styled tennis home; and Pete Sampras, who had beaten him in the 1998 and 1999 semi-finals, had lost in the fourth round. No British competitor in an international tournament could have been more favoured. And he failed.
It is now imperative that Henman employs a coach who has experience of playing at this level and who may be able to push him that extra step.
He has always insisted that he will be a late developer, having not played a huge amount of top-level tennis prior to 1996. But it is not an argument that holds much water. A new generation of younger players are gathering, and there will always be more.
"That's the challenge," said Henman, "but you've got to keep raising your own standards. I know I've certainly done that." Perhaps he has, although the facts, notably his lack of titles, keep getting in the way. Not only has he to improve relative to his own game but, more importantly, relative to everyone else's. And this is not happening.
Should Henman reach the last eight in the US Open next month or in Australia next year, there would be some grounds for hope. However, the chances are that, for all his obvious qualities, amplified on grass, he has just blown his best ever chance of winning the Wimbledon title. Mentally he is not tough enough, and he possesses no shot of sufficient power to trouble the game's true heavyweights. "A nice game," said Martina Navratilova. "A family game."