Tennis /Wimbledon '93:: Britain's young breed court success: Guy Hodgson on the confident mood of the nation's new sporting heroes

THE body language of home players at Wimbledon used to say it all. 'I'm British, so beat me,' the hanging heads, the drooped shoulders and the rigid-with-nerves arms would announce as strokes were aimed away from the lines into the comfort zones of mid-court and were promptly returned for winners. The impetus seemed to be a search for defeat without humiliation.

It was an annual ritual. The Brits were shoved out into the spotlight of national attention and returned diminished, accompanied by sympathetic applause at the time and derision later. Domestic tennis, particularly the male side, was a joke years before Graham Taylor and the England cricket team raised anguished jibes. Fred Perry's bronze statue, the theory went, would give Johnny Foreigner a better game than the saps who metaphorically carried the Union Jack on to court.

So what has been happening at, of all places, Wimbledon? With British winners as difficult to trace as Atlantis, tennis, the most laughed at sport of all, has been giving the nation an unexpected fillip. We can succeed, it seems, albeit among the small fish of the early rounds. Heroes can have an accent that is not heavily laced by Las Vegas lilt or guttural German.

Eight weeks after a Davis Cup defeat by Hungary seemed to mark another milestone in a long, unhappy decline, there is talk of a rebirth of British men's tennis. Chris Wilkinson, a player criticised for feeble resistance in Budapest, even talked of winning the championship. Nonsense, of course, but glorious gobbledygook still after decades of disappointment.

'I feel I am playing well enough to beat anyone,' Wilkinson, who will overtake Jeremy Bates as British No 1 when Wimbledon is over, said. On being reminded his next opponent was Stefan Edberg, he replied: 'Fine. Roll them on. I've a chance of beating him. Really. I know my game's in good shape and getting better all the time.'

Wilkinson's progress to the third round and Andrew Foster's place in the last 16 marked the first time two British males had travelled so far on Wimbledon's lawns since 1977, and they could have had more companions as Mark Petchey and Chris Bailey had held match points against elevated opponents before succumbing.

Even their defeats were not the tiptoeing away from victory of former times. Both players attacked with disregard for reputations and came within a shot of wins their performances deserved. They bristled with intent, striving to win rather than not to lose. They shook their fists in the afterglow of winners and fought tigerishly when they were down. Petchey and Bailey looked cocky, which was just about the last way you would have described knock-me-over British tennis players in the past.

If the applause was sympathetic, this time it was mixed with admiration for efforts which seemed light years beyond their rankings of 263 and 226. Goran Ivanisevic described his match with Bailey as the best five-setter he had ever endured; Jakob Hlasek was amazed at Petchey's lack of nerves.

Petchey captured the mood. 'I will take away more belief in myself,' he said. 'British players have got to carry on from Wimbledon and take (it) through the next 11 months. We must get players in the top 100. We have to take what we've done here and take it into the real world, back on the tour.'

Back in the not-always real world of the Lawn Tennis Association, Richard Lewis, the director of national training, was tracing the roots of this upsurge. Wins over higher-ranked opponents by Wilkinson, Bailey and Ross Matheson (385th in the world) at Queen's and Manchester, he believes, set sights higher, and they have been raised again here.

'The goal posts have been moved,' Lewis said. 'If you look at British middle-distance running, the achievements of Coe, Ovett and Cram have meant that getting a bronze medal is almost a failure. Now, a long way down the scale, British tennis is benefiting from a knock-on effect. Our players see that Chris Wilkinson beat Ivanisevic at Queen's and they are thinking: 'I beat Chris in practice the other day. If he can do it, so can I. I'm bloody well going to do it.' ' Lewis also believes that Jeremy Bates's run to within a point of the quarter-finals 12 months ago laid psychological foundations.

'The British public responded,' he said. 'They had wanted something to cheer and he provided them with it. Foreign players saw the reaction, the atmosphere being created on court, and were anxious to avoid it. Playing a British player is not something they look forward to at any more at Wimbledon.

'What we have seen this week is the result of hard work and a bit of luck. When I saw the draw I thought we'd do well but it's a question of being able to play like this all year and on all surfaces, not just on Wimbledon grass. We are starting to get results that show British players are at least competitive.'

No one more so than Foster, whose fearsome serve has so far removed three players ranked 250 places above him. Having emulated Bates's fourth-round place of last year, he faces the No 1 seed, Pete Sampras, tomorrow, although the current mood being what it is, confronts is a better description. 'I have no negative thoughts,' he said. 'They're all going to be positive. I'm just going out there to enjoy it and play the same as I've been doing. I can beat him.'

Every portent in tennis says he cannot, but a few illusions have been broken this week. On Wednesday, with the tide flowing in the home direction, Christine Janes, who was runner-up as Christine Truman at Wimbledon 32 years ago, tapped the jingoism for Radio Five: 'Instead of the usual what's wrong with British tennis,' she said, 'we should be asking why these foreigners can't give us a better game?'

A lovely thought, isn't it?

(Photograph omitted)