Henman falls to familiar pieces
He came. He saw. He choked. With the bottom half of the men's singles draw in the 90th Australian Open all but reduced to the status of a minor European indoor event in late autumn, Tim Henman, the No6 seed, walked into the Rod Laver arena yesterday morning with the odds of his reaching a first grand-slam final next Sunday so heavily stacked in his favour that it appeared the first six days had been schemed by some benevolent benefactor hell bent on presenting Henman with the easiest passage possible.
Such was the relative paucity of the opposition remaining, that even those who refused to believe Henman would ever get within sniffing distance of a slam final on any surface other than grass began to wonder if the world was about to be stood on its head and that history - Henman's history - was to be declared bunk.
In 19 previous grand-slam tournaments in Melbourne, Paris and New York, he had never managed to carry his racket any further than the last 16. At Wimbledon, where 75% of men are overcome by the vapours the moment they set foot on grass, Henman is a prince. Not a king, mark you, but a prince, with three semi-finals and two quarter-finals in the past six years. But on the hard courts of the Australian and US Opens, as well as the clay of Roland Garros, the British No1 has been barred from entry to the second week by a door marked "possible champions only - no chokers".
But this was going to be different. To be sure, he was not underestimating Jonas Bjorkman, ranked No64 in the world, but not even Henman could screw up this opportunity of a lifetime. He did. This fourth-round match was not even close, Bjorkman winning 6-2, 7-6, 6-4. "You just can't take anything for granted," said Henman afterwards. The trouble was you could. That he would lose.
It is no good blaming Henman. He simply does not have what it takes, the mental alchemy, to covert his natural talent to championship gold. The problem is that from time to time - as at Wimbledon against Goran Ivanisevic last year, and again in this position where the draw opened up to the point of sagging - those who watch him throughout the year are apt to suffer from collective amnesia, or are left in denial of his perfectly clear and obvious inability to cope with pressure.
Whatever plan Henman and his coach, Larry Stefanki, had concocted was rendered obsolete by Henman's loss of nerve. Bjorkman, who had expected an opening salvo of some intensity, could barely believe his luck. "His strategy was a little different than I was expecting," said the 29-year-old Swede, which was a polite way of expressing the all too obvious incoherent and vacillating nature of Henman's first hour on court. It was 2001 revisited, a replay of the same round last year, when he had frozen against Pat Rafter.
But that had been partly excusable. Having entered the brand new Stefanki world, and having won the preparatory tournament in Adelaide, Henman had convinced himself that the leopard had changed its spots. But yesterday, the pressure having increased sharply, all the bad old habits returned. His first serve disintegrated, and he found himself in two-man's land and a schizophrenic nightmare.
Against Rusedski, Henman dominated the net exchanges and served solidly throughout. Against Bjorkman he started with a double fault, and duly dropped his first three service games. It was the worst of beginnings, and thereafter his game rarely rose above the satisfactory. Even when he broke Bjorkman for a 5-3 lead in the second set, Henman immediately dropped his own with leaden predictability.
The only weakness in Bjorkman's game was that he was inclined to ease off the pedal when in front. At 4-1 up in the tie-break he looked home and dry in the second set, only to leave Henman with a set point at 6-5. This Bjorkman saved with brilliance at the net, and then, with athleticism and nerve, punished Henman for not putting away a smash at 6-6. Effectively this was Henman's last stand; he saved five match points at 5-4 in the third, but this belated defiance only delayed the inevitable.
There were those prepared, in all seriousness, to suggest that his third-round victory over Greg Rusedski had drained Henman of inspiration. In truth, this was just the latest in a litany of vapid performances, although the particular circumstances, namely the state of the draw, made such an uninspirational and ineffectual display doubly galling.
"By winning eight matches in a row before this one, I think I've shown that I'm certainly improving," said Henman, a statement that drifted away into the ether like a small rain cloud in the desert. As much as Henman may work on his game, the major flaw in his psychological make-up, namely his chronic vulnerability under pressure, shows no sign of changing. Wimbledon remains his one hope of a grand-slam title, no other, and that hope is constantly dwindling in the face of the passing years and the emergence of fresh talent.
British No1 he is, and British No1 he will stay for as long as he likes within reasonable parameters. But Henman has always yearned for so much more than that, believing himself capable of a place in the world's top five and of winning grand slams. If only reality did not keep impinging on his dreams.
Bjorkman next plays his fellow Swede Thomas Johansson, who defeated Romania's Adrian Voinea, and in the other quarter-final in the bottom half Jiri Novak of the Czech Republic is up against Austria's surprise package Stefan Koubek. But the remaining big guns are in the top half of the draw, with Pete Sampras playing Marat Safin today, a repeat of the 2000 US Open final which Safin won in straight sets.