http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/ten...icle1909884.eceThe Big Interview: Tim Henman
The former British No 1 isn’t ready to retire just yet and has some harsh truths for those who say he should have won Wimbledon
Paul Kimmage
“What a squalid and irresponsible little profession it is . . . Nothing prepares you for how bad Fleet Street really is until it craps on you from a great height.” – Ken Livingstone
I am sitting in a room at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton playing a game with Tim Henman. He has been telling me about his spate of injuries this year and recent first-round exit from the French Open in Paris, but I need him to concede that his life as a professional athlete has run its course. I have come, you see, not to praise the noble Tim but to bury him. The title of this obituary, “The Last Summer of Tim”, has already been drawn. All that is required now is a quote, something along the lines of, “My body is shot”, or “My legs have gone”, or “This will be my last Wimbledon”. But Tim, being Tim, is refusing to play along.
“It’s not easy playing catchup when you’ve missed the first three months [of the year],” he says. “But I’m very ready right now to kick on. I’m in great shape; my back has been fine; my knee feels great; I want to get on the court and play.”
“You looked very frustrated in Paris against Ernests Gulbis,” I observe.
“Yes,” he concedes. “I’m battling a bit with myself and things aren’t going to plan, but I’ve got to stick in there and be resilient.”
“The commentators said you looked off the pace.”
“Yeah, but clay is a difficult surface,” he counters. “I would be the first to admit that it’s not the prettiest match I’ve ever played, but big deal. It’s not something I’m going to dwell on.”
“Take me through your mental state walking off the court,” I press.
“My mental state as I was walking off was . . .”
“Let me guess,” I interrupt. “You were thinking, ‘I hate this game’.”
“No,” he says, laughing, “I don’t know if it was that. I just wanted to fast-forward the next six to 12 hours and get out of there, basically. I wanted to get out of there that night and get home. I wanted to put it behind me and start preparing for the grass.”
“And did you get home that night?” “No. I had the press conference to do and there wasn’t time. I got back to the hotel and Luce [Lucy, his wife] was there. Paul [Annacone, his trainer] and Joey [Johan de Beer, his physio] were staying at the same hotel. We had some food at the bar and two or three beers, and we got up at six the next morning and got on the train home.“
“How long did it take for the frustration to clear your system?” I ask.
“I try not to let it linger. I reflect on it a bit, but basically it’s done, it’s history and I try to move on.”
“You went home to your two daughters?”
“Yes.” “Does that help?” “Yes, but again . . . I am not the type of guy who gets down when things have gone badly or who shouts from the rooftops when I’ve had my best results; I don’t do highs and lows or peaks and troughs. Tennis is a game and I love it and I’m passionate about it, but it’s a game and there are more important things. And I’ve always had that perspective.”
IT IS A Tuesday morning in London. We have left the National Tennis Centre and Henman is driving me to Wimbledon in his splendid black Jaguar to play Andy Roddick in a practice game. They say Henman is as drab as an English winter – a comedian once described him as “the human form of beige” – but someone will have to explain that to me. Maybe I’m colour-blind; I think he is one of the most interesting and admirable sportsmen that Britain has produced.
“I read somewhere that your parents have never given an interview,” I say.
“That’s right.”
“Was that your decision or theirs?”
“It wasn’t really a decision . . . well, no, people have asked for it, so there must have been a decision at some time . . . but they have nothing to say. I think it’s a similar scenario to me when people say, ‘When are you going to write an autobiography?’ And I’m like, ‘Why would I want to do that?’ And they say, ‘It would be a fascinating read’. And I’m like, ‘Yeah, but it’s none of their business’. And they say, ‘Yeah, but it would be great if you could tell the story’. And I’m like, ‘Yeah, but I know the story and people around me know the story and that’s all that matters’.”
“So you’re not going to do it?”
“No. I’ve had a debate about this with Jan [Felgate], my agent at IMG, and she is convinced one day I will do it, but at this moment in time there is no chance. I enjoy reading autobiographies, but there is no way I would write one myself.”
“Why not?”
“It comes back to my roots; I’m a private person. I totally accept everything that goes with what I do and accept that there is going to be intrusion at different times, and the more attention on the court, the better, but outside of that, no, I’m private. I never say never, but I’ll be surprised if I ever do one; I’ve read Nick Faldo’s and John Daly’s and Lampard’s and Armstrong’s and Monty’s and I’ve really enjoyed them, but . . .”
“It’s not you?” I suggest. “No, it’s not me.”
“I’ve read a couple of interviews where you have admitted putting up the shutters to the media to protect yourself.”
“Yes.”
“But that’s been a double-edged sword, hasn’t it, because it has facilitated this notion . . .”
“That I’m a boring twat,” he says with a laugh.
“Well, that’s the perception.”
“I have always done a good job of being able to focus my mind on what’s important and have never let anything get in the way of that. I know what the honest answer [to a question] is and I know what the right answer is, and if I have been guilty of anything, yeah, I have given the right answer rather than the honest answer on more occasions than not. But do you know what? That’s a defence mechanism so I don’t have to deal with all the s*** you get. So you give a straight bat [in interviews] to protect yourself and people say, ‘How boring is that?’ But that’s not really me, so it doesn’t bother me. At the end of the day I’m not in a popularity contest, so I don’t really care what those people think. And maybe I could have managed that better over the years, but what difference was it going to make? It wasn’t going to improve my forehand.”
His countenance is as sunny as the morning as we arrive at Wimbledon.
“Best of luck this year, Tim,” a pedestrian cheers as he steps from the car.
“Thanks very much.”
HE THROWS a kit bag over his shoulder and leads me through the gates and up the stairs to the deserted locker room. Doug, the attendant, has begun putting the names on the doors. Tim’s juices are flowing. It’s his favourite time of year. Some of the most satisfying moments of his career have been spent in this room. And some of the more absurd.
“There was one great one,” he says. “I remember in 2002, Sampras played and lost on Court Two in the second round, and on the same day, the Wednesday, Agassi lost and Safin lost. I had won my first round on the Tuesday and was playing again on Thursday morning, and when I came into the locker room, there was a front page of the Mirror: ‘Tim, if you choke this year we will never forgive you’.
“Now basically, I don’t read the papers and would never have seen it, but there must have been half-a-dozen players that brought this [the paper] in and they were just looking at it in absolute amazement, saying: ‘What the f*** is this?’ They were shocked and probably a bit embarrassed for me, but all I could do was laugh. I was like, ‘Yeah, you know, welcome to my world’.”
The world according to Tim: Some extracts from the story that will never be written.
THE MONTH is June 1981. A mother takes her son by the hand and leads him through the crowds to the Centre Court at Wimbledon. It is a Monday afternoon and the American Peter Rennert is playing Sweden’s Bjorn Borg on the opening day of The Championships. Jane Henman loves tennis. Wimbledon is in her blood. Her parents, Henry and Susan Billington, played in the mixed doubles championships shortly after Jane was conceived, and she often jokes to her friends: “Did you know I played at Wimbledon?”
Tim is the youngest of her three sons. The boy is just six years old but already carries a welt on his racket-playing hand. Later the experts will ascribe this passion to his genes. Tim, being Tim, will never accept it. “It’s an interesting story and people always pick up on it, but the truth is that it had no bearing,” he says. “My grandfather played in the Davis Cup and at Wimbledon, and that’s a pretty good pedigree, but if I’m honest, I can’t really say it had an influence.” Borg was the influence.
That Monday afternoon in 1981 would change the course of Henman’s life. “He was the defending champion and I can remember pretty much where we sat and watched,” he says. “The whole scenario was just . . . It was Wimbledon, the pinnacle of the game and Borg was an idol. Something in me clicked. I thought, ‘Yeah, I want some of this’, and that was when I made my one and only career decision: I wanted to be a tennis player. I had no idea what lay ahead or whether I was going to be any good. It was a dream.”
The month is October 1984. The boy is watching his father playing squash in the Oxfordshire county league. The game ends. The players shake hands. The boy is waiting for Tony Henman when he emerges from the court.
“You lost, Dad?” he asks. “Yes, Tim,” his father replies, wiping the sweat from his brow, “but I tried my best. I gave it 100%. There is no shame in losing if you always try your best.”
Tim always tries his best. He has been selected by David Lloyd, the former Davis Cup captain, to go to Reed’s, a boarding school in Cobham, Surrey, on a tennis scholarship. A boy called Marc Moreso is the most gifted of the class. Marc has been blessed with talent and class and guile. He beats Tim easily every time they play. Tim keeps coming back; he keeps getting beaten; the criticism stings.
“You’re too small.”
“You’re too weak.”
“You’re not going to cut it.”
The best shot in his locker is the one they cannot coach. Desire. Nobody wants it more than Tim. He will reach the top.
At 16 he asks his father about leaving school to pursue a professional career. Tony, a successful solicitor and conservative by nature, isn’t sure. What if the boy doesn’t make it? The experts say he will be lucky to break into the top 200. But Tony has always loved sport and deep down carries a regret that he didn’t aim for the stars himself. “Okay, Tim,” he concedes, “you can always go back to your education.”
And so the journey begins. Tim Henman is the 1,300th-best tennis player in the world and for the next six years this will be his life: the constant travel, the cheap hotels, the dog-eat-dog battles in empty, distant arenas on the satellite tours.
“People ask me about Wimbledon sometimes and if I beat myself up about it,” he says. “But why am I going to beat myself up when I know that I have come from those times?
“I remember at that age thinking, ‘Jeez, if I could play on the ATP Tour and be ranked in the top 100, that would be awesome; if I could play on the main Tour or get into Wimbledon without a wild card, that would be phenomenal’. I’ve had this debate before with journalists. If you had asked any of them when I was 16 to write down what success would be for Tim Henman, they would all have said, ‘If he can get into the top 100, it would be fantastic’. That’s where I get my perspective.”
The month is June 1996. The boy is about to make his debut on the Centre Court at Wimbledon. He has been drawn to play Yevgeny Kafelnikov, the new French Open champion, and has spent the build-up to the match sitting in the empty arena, staring at the place where he once sat with his mother.
“There are times in your life when you can pinpoint an experience that sets you on your way,” he says. “I just thought, ‘F****** hell, I feel so good here’. I didn’t miss a ball in the knock-up. I broke his serve first game. It can also work the opposite way. You watch some guys playing Davis Cup and they have a bad experience first-off and it defines their career.
“It’s a bit like – and I hate to say this – Harmison’s first ball in Brisbane [which went straight to Andrew Flintoff at second slip]; it kind of rocked everyone and set the tone for the Ashes. The match with Kafelnikov was unbelievable. I felt so comfortable and was up two sets to love, but he got back and I’m suddenly down 5-3 and 15-40 in the fifth. I remember thinking, ‘The least I can do is make him serve for the match’, and I served back-to-back aces to get him back to deuce. I held my serve and played three phenomenal games to win 7-5 in the fifth.”
He reached the quarter-finals that year and was suddenly front-page news. “That was the turning point,” he says. “Wherever I went after that, it was a different ball game. Does it take getting used to? Yes it does. People start looking at you a bit funny in the petrol station or whatever and it does take a bit of adjusting to, but I think if you’re a well-rounded individual, it doesn’t cause too many problems.”
“But what about the weight of expectation?” I ask. “Surely that made it harder?”
“It should, but it never has,” he replies. "My mum has kept some of the newspaper cuttings – the front pages of The Sun and stuff like that – and sometimes when I’m back at my parents’ place I’ve looked at it and thought, ‘Jesus! How did I come through all that?’ But I can honestly say I am never (a) bothered by it or (B) really see what’s going on. And that’s the best way to be, because if you walked out on court, thinking about all of the people in the stands and what the press were going to say, you wouldn’t be able to hold the racket, would you? So I didn’t allow it to bother me. On top of that, that whole celebrity scene, that whole fame game, has never been of any interest to me. I just want to be as good a player as I can.”
THE MATCH with Roddick has been fixed for 11.30am on one of the Aorangi Park courts. Tim suggests a quick coffee and we leave the locker room through a corridor and a stairway adorned with the portraits of former champions. During his 13 appearances at Wimbledon he has played in eight quarter-finals and lost to the eventual winner in four semi-finals: Pete Sampras in 1998 and 1999, Goran Ivanisevic in 2001 and Lleyton Hewitt in 2002. These are the portraits that always catch his eye.
“I lost in four semis at Wimbledon,” he says, “and on the one hand I think it says something for my consistency and the number of times I have played in the second week there, but on the other I think, ‘Jeez, I couldn’t turn one of those opportunities into a win and get into a Wimbledon final’. I lost to Sampras – probably the greatest grass-court player who has ever played – twice. I lost that match to Ivanisevic and I lost to Hewitt, who was the best player in the world at the time. What can I say? On three out of the four occasions they were better than me.
“You know what? I go out there and I try my best – and in every match that I have played as a professional I have tried my best – and when you convert that to percentages, it’s 100%. If people want more than that, you are up against it.”
But we do want more. We have always wanted more. We’re not interested in the struggle, the toil, or what it takes to merit a top50 ranking. We’re not bothered by the sacrifice or commitment or dedication it takes to even play on Centre Court. We revere winners and success and gorge our champions with adulation and celebrity. It’s all about the silverware, Timmy baby, anything else is a “choke”.
Henman doesn’t do nightmares, but if he did, they would be haunted by a giant Croat. “What if you could play that match with Ivanisevic again?” I ask. “Would you do anything differently?”
“No, nothing,” he replies instinctively, before changing his mind. “Well, f***, I’d love it not to have rained. You look at the nature of the match and in the first two sets he’s playing great and I’m struggling to hang in there. I lose the first set but win the second set in a tie-break and I’m thinking, ‘What a great result! He’s dominated the match and we’re a set-all’. I won the next set in 14 minutes and suddenly I’m destroying him. He’s gone; you look at him sitting at the change of ends and he’s shaking his head. The next set starts and it’s time to wipe the slate clean, but I’m up 2-1 and if this is a boxing match, I’m on top, but then it rains. No problem. I’ve been dealing with rain delays since the under10 nationals, but we get up the next day and the weather is still iffy, and we start the match again, but his service rhythm is different.
“He’s hitting his spot so much better and I need four or five service games to start making a few returns and there are no breaks of serves and we’re into a tie-break, which is often spin-the-wheel. I’m up early in the tie-break, he gets back into it and hits an ace that’s a questionable call at five-all and then hits a great return at 6-5 on set point, and we’re into the fifth and it’s the same scenario. I’m down 3-2 when rain stops play and it’s come back tomorrow.
“I get up the next morning and go through the same routine. We resume at 3-2 and 15 minutes later, before either of us has really got into the match, it’s over and I’ve lost 6-3 and I’m sitting in the locker room with this incredibly hollow feeling: ‘Is that it?’ And it’s depressing and disappointing and whatever you want to say. But to answer your original question, no, I wouldn’t do anything differently.”
“But what if you’d had someone smacking you across the face before going out that Sunday morning?” I press. “Come on Tim! This is it! The game is on the line!”
It’s the most ridiculous argument he has ever heard. “And what would that have done except put more pressure on!” he snorts.
“Sorry, I never claimed to be a sports psychologist,” I protest. “This is Joe Public speaking here.”
“Yeah, exactly.” He laughs. “Look, who knows, you can spend your life second-guessing yourself.” HE IS on the court now at Aorangi, locked in a titanic battle with Roddick. He likes the big-serving American and they eat out together regularly on the road, but this morning it’s strictly business. Roddick takes the first set comfortably, then loses the second to some inspiring play by Henman. And when Tim takes the match in a nine-point tie-break, the world No 3 almost explodes with rage. Henman is elated. “That was a great example of what I still love about the game,” he says. “I’m out in the sun, playing against a good guy at Wimbledon, I’m hitting the ball well and it’s my job!”
“It doesn’t help my story,” I protest. “This was supposed to be ‘The Last Summer of Tim.’”
He shakes his head and smiles. “I had a long chat with Agassi about it [retirement] last year at the US Open. He told me that he had pushed his body until he felt like he couldn’t take it any more. ‘I wanted to make sure that the day I hung up my racket as a professional tennis player I was retiring, not quitting’, he said. And those are two very different scenarios. I could stop tomorrow, but that would be quitting and there is no way I am going to do that.”
“I might still run the headline and blame it on my editor!” I say. “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before,” he says with a laugh.