Tim Henman made the most of his talent

There can't be too many Englishmen who have a famous upland named after them.

Sensing Tim Henman was on the way out, the media this year even tried to take it away from him, by branding the slope "Murray Mound" after the new kid on the block, Andy Murray.

But the Great British public would have none of it.

And they were there in their thousands again in June, back on "Henman Hill" to pay tribute to the man who, single-handedly, had restored the nation's pride in a sport in which, for decades, we had been smashed to smithereens.

Now at the age of 33 and hampered by a back complaint, Henman is to retire after this weekend's Davis Cup tie against Croatia at Wimbledon.

From a very early age, Henman was hungry to beat whoever he faced, starting from his older brothers on the court at his family home in Weston-on-the-Green, carrying through to others from Oxfordshire in his own age group, and then on to rivals from throughout Britain and beyond in competitions and tournaments of ever-increasing importance.

The determination was always there. He had to have that because, in terms of his physique, Tim wasn't the strongest.

I started following Henman at Wimbledon in 1994 and have been very fortunate to have watched nearly every one of his singles matches there since.

The following year he chalked up his first win at the All-England Club by defeating a Kenyan, Paul Wekesa, ranked nearly 70 places above him, in straight sets.

That set up a mouth-watering meeting with the defending champion Pete Sampras.

As expected, Sampras proved far too good for him, but the British media were clamouring for a big new hope.

"He did OK, but he needs to work on developing a weapon," Sampras said afterwards of his 20-year-old opponent.

Those words were to prove significant because it was the lack of a thunderous serve or brilliant early return which was to often leave Henman just short of the ultimate prize.

Over the years, however, Henman - who has always had an excellent all-round game - would keep delivering.

Tim gave us some fantastic moments. His Centre Court match against the reigning French Open champion Yevgeny Kafelnikov in 1996 was one of the finest sporting occasions I have witnessed.

Some sections of the media would hype Henman up to create ridiculous levels of expectation, and some spectators, ignorant about the game, couldn't understand why he couldn't finish off matches in which he had been ahead.

Henman was labelled "a loser", "a choker", "a failure" purely because he couldn't win Wimbledon, but this was totally unjust.

He has been a wonderful player, and one who, by reaching No 4 in the world, and six Grand Slam semis has outperformed his ability. He has been one of our great over-achievers.

5:46pm Thursday 20th September 2007

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