It is that time of year for Henman

Ian Chadband13 April 2012

It's that time of year again. For the other 11 months, we watch his progress from afar and note the bare scorelines from Adelaide to Arizona with only passing interest. Look, he's won a tournament in Copenhagen. Good lad. Oh, he's gone out of the French Open in the third round. Ho hum.

Then Tim Henman comes back for four weeks and a nation cannot take its eyes off him - well, give or take the odd sozzled corporate hospitality punter.

"Yeah, the expectation is there, the same as ever, and I certainly don't have a problem with that," he shrugged after beginning his annual pilgrimage yesterday. Indeed, he made it sound as if it is only when he gets a first whiff of those jolly nice civilised lawns at Queen's that he really comes alive.

This is understandable, really. The circuit must be a grind and, after a while, a touch disenchanting when you are slogging around to little appreciation, consistently among the world's top 15 players but only rarely making a real splash.

Then you are suddenly reminded again that the folk back home really do care. It was, he said, his favourite spell of the year on and off court because the support he had was "second to none" and because familiarity bred contentment.

He appears to have grown comfortable with Henmania. Five years ago at Wimbledon when we all gazed open-mouthed at this unthinkable vision of a proper home-grown male tennis player after years of woeful imitations, the clamour was all fantastically shrill and barmy. Inevitably, it's become more subdued as the frailties which accompany the talent have been exposed and he has never quite delivered as much as he has promised.

Yet, even if there may now be plenty of doubters out there who fear he'll never win a Grand Slam because he's not mentally tough enough - even good judges like Tony Pickard reckon this could be his last chance of winning Wimbledon, which is a pretty stark judgment on a bloke who's still only 26 - Henman, publicly at least, says he has not noted any change in expectation levels.

That suits him because he believes that "when the spotlight has been on at this time of year, I've thrived on it in a lot of matches". This is unarguable. In the last five years at Wimbledon, he has been quarter-finalist twice and semi-finalist twice, while in 17 other Grand Slam tournaments over the same period he has, frustratingly for a player of his obvious gifts, not progressed beyond the fourth round.

Clearly, it is not just playing on a receptive surface which inspires him at SW19. He believes he has mastered the trick of feeding off the fevered home support while simultaneously managing to remember that "you're playing for yourself irrespective of how many thousands are out there willing you on". It was, he said, his way of fending off pressure.

Yet whether the knack can help him take those steep final steps from fragile contender to steely champion at Wimbledon remains the burning question.

This Stella Artois tournament, with its distinctly genteel feel and its three-set sprints, probably won't really help give us any sort of reliable indicator because even when he's done badly at Queen's - which is often - he has invariably looked a different player anyway a fortnight later.

All we could learn from the way he effortlessly despatched an ageing Italian qualifier, Cristiano Caratti, for the loss of just four games yesterday was what we knew already.

That he has the athleticism and all-court game to bully ordinary players. Only when he gets to Wimbledon, though, will we see if he can eliminate the sort of unevenness of performance and typically absent-minded moments which led to the recent five-set exit to Guillermo Canas in the French Open.

Yet even while the 135mph missiles of Australian Wayne Arthurs were likely to give him a real test in the third round later today, there could be no mistaking how relaxed Henman seems about the serious stuff to come a fortnight hence. Where others would be forgiven for feeling suffocated by it all, he just seems energised.

Still, as a warm-up for the Caratti game, it might not have been the greatest idea for him to sit in front of the telly and watch his sparring partner Pete Sampras.

For if the great man wanted to make reports of his demise appear exaggerated then he could hardly have made a more emphatic statement than with his magnificent 44-minute demolition of the capable Belgian, Olivier Rochus.

Even more than for Henman, you suspect, Sampras's annual re-acquaintance with Queen's Club must feel like extricating himself from treacle in Paris and bounding on to a trampoline in London.

"It was pretty impressive to watch. He is still going to be the clear favourite for Wimbledon," noted Henman, while teasing the assembled press corps with the observation: "And you guys have been telling me this past couple of months that he's over the hill..."

Over the hill? No, Tim, I'm sure we just meant out of sight. But then Henman doubtless doesn't listen either to those who carp on about his own Wimbledon chances.

Because once he touches the green, green grass of home, he rules out nothing.

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