HOLDING out the hope that Tim Henman can be reborn as a challenger for the eminent titles in tennis — and he had never, in truth, been one of those here — becomes a more dispiriting experience as the months pass and the results decline. The manner of his fall in the first round yesterday accentuated all the negative vibes he refuses to acknowledge.
The gloom-mongers will have yet another day in full flow, but the essence of Henman’s riposte is a belief founded in all that he is doing and the conviction that it will turn out nice again some sunny day.
At Wimbledon six months ago, Dmitry Tursunov was ranked No 157 in the world and defeated Henman, the world No 6 at the time, in five sets. Yesterday the Russian, now ranked No 53, beat Henman, the No 36, in four. Henman led 5-1 in the fourth set and lost six games in succession, his hopes of forcing a fifth set blown away in a stream of clubbing winners from Tursunov, the staple of so many young titans these days.
Against such virility, Henman offers his touch, his remarkable hands and eyes, his faith in a beautiful technique and an appreciation of how he would like to play and how his strategy should work. If only the opposition was not so powerful. It is not an answer that convinces the doubters.
They see a 31-year-old trying to run a race against unequal odds with a nice game that gives him an unequal chance. As politely as anyone could say it, Henman is a 20th-century dinosaur in a sport that is increasingly the province of the blood-and-thunder brigade.
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As Croatia’s most venerable writer said after Henman’s 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 defeat — the Briton has won just four matches in his past five grand-slam tournaments — it was like so many of the inquisitions he endured with Goran Ivanisevic, the Croat who won Wimbledon.
Ivanisevic kept insisting: “Just let me be fit and I’ll have a chance.” Henman’s mantra is precisely the same, although Ivanisevic had something Henman does not — a left-handed serve that acted as a lifebelt when he was in choppy waters.
When Tursunov came out smacking shots that made one wince from 20 yards away, it was going to take something special for Henman to live with him and he found it, a stubborn refusal to be swept aside, so much so that he took the first set, serving with purpose, sliding backhand winners that Tursunov failed to read, enticing and lobbing, getting inside the Russian’s head.
Although Tursunov led by two sets to one, Henman raced into a 5-1 lead in the fourth, ripping service winners and getting the crowd to offer him rowdy, coruscating support. It was then that he needed to turn the screw and not toss away points in the hope that he would hold his serve. When he dropped it to love in the eighth game, a collective clearing of throats could be heard. A missed forehand on break point in the next game will haunt him.
A subsequent service game was dropped to 15 and the freckle-faced Tursunov was on an unstoppable roll. It is hard to remember the previous time Henman lost the last six games of any match, and certainly not one as important as this.
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Tursunov completed victory in 3hr 14min to set up a second-round encounter tomorrow with Tommy Robredo, of Spain, the No 16 seed. He hit 67 outright winners, mainly with his powerful forehand, and broke Henman’s service nine times.
“With my standards, I wouldn’t say this is easy,” Henman said. “My level of expectation has been in the top ten and I’m not there now. But you don’t achieve what I have without a competitive instinct — that’s what motivates me. I have a belief that my results will get better. If there are other people that have their doubts and are going to be second-guessing, that’s fine.”
More relevantly, he said: “You do absolutely everything you can, but there are times when it doesn’t matter who you are, there’s nothing you can do. I knew it could happen, but you are keeping your fingers crossed that he’s going to miss sometimes. When he’s stringing it together, he’s one of the most difficult to play against.”
Tursunov would not claim to play pretty-boy tennis. He probably would want what he does to look good, but there is no top-up in the rankings for artistic impression or technical excellence. Tursunov beats the living daylights off a ball and, when it goes in, invariably it wins the point.
To hell with aesthetics. Henman has never been like that and now that cavemen rule the earth, perhaps he should take his leave and enjoy the fruits of his many remarkable labours.
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RESULTS FROM MELBOURNE PARK
FIRST ROUND
MEN
G Gaudio (Arg) bt R Sabau (Rom) 6-2, 5-0 ret; L Burgsmüller (Ger) bt R Schüttler (Ger) 3-6, 6-3, 7-6, 6-3; F Santoro (Fr) bt V Spadea (US) 3-6, 6-0, 6-2, 6-3; A Pavel (Rom) bt C Moyà (Sp) 6-4, 7-6, 4-6, 3-6, 6-4; M Ancic (Cro) bt A Calleri (Arg) 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4; J Hernych (Cz) bt F Vicente (Sp) 2-6, 6-3, 7-6, 6-2; D Bracciali (It) bt Lu Yen-hsun (Taiwan) 6-1, 7-6, 6-2; D Ferrer (Sp) bt F Serra (Fr) 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, 6-4 ; T Robredo (Sp) bt J Vanek (Cz) 6-4, 7-6, 6-3; D Tursunov (Russ) bt T Henman (GB) 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5; J-C Faurel (Fr) bt A Waske (Ger) 7-6, 6-3, 7-6; J Blake (US) bt J Acasuso (Arg) 6-2, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6; J Nieminen (Fin) bt M Kimmich (Aus) 6-2, 6-3, 6-1; Wang Yeu-tzuoo (Taiwan) bt M Zabaleta (Arg) 6-2, 7-5, 4-1 ret; S Wawrinka (Switz) bt A Montanes (Sp) 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 6-0; D Nalbandian (Arg) bt D Udomchoke (Thai) 6-2, 6-2, 1-6, 6-7, 6-1; I Ljubicic (Cro) bt C Guccione (Aus) 7-6, 6-4, 7-6; P Kohlschreiber (Ger) bt L Dlouhy (Cz) 7-5, 6-2, 6-4; G Muller (Lux) bt R Mello (Br) 5-7, 6-2, 6-7, 7-6, 6-0; F López (Sp) bt T Behrend (Ger) 6-2, 7-5, 6-3; T Berdych (Cz) bt B Reynolds (US) 7-5, 6-3, 6-7, 6-1; G Simon (Fr) bt N Massu (Chile) 7-6, 6-2, 3-6, 4-6, 6-3; X Malisse (Bel) bt M Youzhny (Russ) 7-5, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2; T Johansson (Swe) bt C Saulnier (Fr) 6-1, 7-6, 6-4; R Ginepri (US) bt J Melzer (Austria) 6-1, 6-4, 6-2; D Gremelmayr (Ger) bt J Björkman (Swe) 3-6, 6-2, 6-0, 6-1; M Baghdatis (Cyp) bt J Gimelstob (US) 7-6, 7-5, 6-0; R Stepanek (Cz) bt B Rehnquist (Swe) 6-1, 6-2, 6-2; G García-López (Sp) bt T Dent (US) 7-6, 6-3, 7-6; J Benneteau (Fr) bt M Daniel (Br) 6-2, 6-1, 3-0 ret; W Moodie (SA) bt O Hernández (Sp) 3-6, 7-6, 6-4, 6-2; A Roddick (US) bt M Lammer (Switz) 6-4, 6-2, 6-2.
WOMEN L Davenport (US) bt C Dell’acqua (Aus) 6-2, 6-1; K Sprem (Cro) bt A Bondarenko (Ukr) 6-4, 6-2; G Voskoboeva (Russ) bt E Gagliardi (Switz) 6-4, 6-3; M Kirilenko (Russ) bt E Linetskaya (Russ) 6-1, 3-1 ret; M Santangelo (It) bt T Golovin (Fr) 6-4, 4-6, 6-4; K Srebotnik (Slovenia) bt S Foretz (Fr) 6-4, 6-3; A P Santonja (Sp) bt T Panova (Russ) 4-6, 7-5, 6-1; S Kuznetsova (Russ) bt L Breadmore (Aus) 6-1, 6-3; T Pironkova (Bul) bt V Williams (US) 2-6, 6-0, 9-7; L Granville (US) bt K Wörle (Ger) 5-7, 6-2, 6-0; V Ruano Pascual (Sp) bt L Dominguez Lino (Sp) 6-2, 7-6; E Likhovtseva (Russ) bt L Raymond (US) 7-6, 7-6; C Martínez Granados (Sp) bt A Sugiyama (Japan) 6-4 6-3; V Razzano (Fr) bt J Dokic (Aus) 3-6, 7-6, 6-1; H Sromova (Cz) bt A Morigami (Japan) 3-0 ret; J Henin-Hardenne (Bel) bt M Domachowska (Pol) 6-2, 6-1; M Sharapova (Russ) bt S Klösol (Ger) 6-2, 6-1; A Harkleroad (US) bt Peng Shuai (China) 6-4, 6-1; J Kostanic (Cro) bt M Washington (US) 6-1, 6-2; Z Ondraskova (Cz) bt A Medina Garrigues (Sp) 6-3, 6-4; D Hantuchova (Slovakia) bt S Obata (Japan) 3-6, 6-3, 6-0; A Amanmuradov (Uzb) bt D Randriantefy (Madagascar) 6-3, 2-6, 6-1; C Pin (Fr) bt M Diaz-Oliva (Arg) 2-6, 7-5, 6-4; S Williams (US) bt Li Na (China) 6-3, 6-7, 6-2; J Schruff (Ger) bt E Dementieva (Russ) 7-5, 6-2; E Vesnina (Russ) bt Li Ting (China) 6-2, 6-3; O Savchuk (Ukr) bt T Obziler (Isr) 6-1, 3-6, 6-4; J Jankovic (Serbia and M) bt J Craybas (US) 6-2, 4-6, 6-4; E Bychkova (Russ) bt K Koukalova (Cz) 6-1, 5-7, 6-2; M E Camerin (It) bt Y Meusburger (Austria) 6-4, 6-2; M Muller (Ger) bt J Gajdosova (Slovakia) 1-6, 6-2, 6-3; N Petrova (Russ) bt S Ferguson (Aus) 6-2, 6-1.