Wimbledon 1997: The Millennium Man

Tim Henman knows he is far from the finished article. But meticulous planning will push him to the peak

In England in June, expectation dogs Tim Henman's every step. Sponsors expect promotion, journalists expect snappy quotes, fans expect autographs, and everyone expects victory at Wimbledon. Yet the object of all the attention carries the weight more easily than he does a bag full of endorsed rackets: it is an inevitable part of the progress to the top of his game, and accepted as such. The composure, the perceived coldness, have been criticised, unjustly. The fact is that Tim Henman has a simple purpose, and if he is to raise his racket in triumph on the final Sunday of Wimbledon it will be part of the plan. A joyful moment, certainly, the spur for an outburst of spontaneous celebration, perhaps. But just part of the plan, all the same.

When he first ignited Henmania by defeating Yevgeny Kafelnikov so dramatically in the first round at Wimbledon last year, Oxford's finest looked no further than success in his next match. But his progress to the quarter-finals there, and subsequent progress at the Grand Slam Cup and in Sydney, where he won his first tour title, have fostered a longer-term outlook, given substance earlier this month when Henman signed a five-year contract with the British racket manufacturer Slazenger. Now he and his coach, David Felgate, are thinking not just of the wins and losses that may be just around the corner, but of what they might be achieving into the next century.

During a break from his Wimbledon warm-up earlier this month, Henman looked forward down the years. "I've always worked towards goals throughout my career," he said, "and the next obvious target is to try to break into the top 10. I think five years is a little too far to look but there will always be targets for me."

Felgate focuses further into the future, reckoning that Henman may realistically have another eight or so Wimbledons ahead of him, meaning that, at 22, Henman is now heading into what should be the most productive years of a lengthy and carefully cultivated career. "Tim has good and bad matches like all players," Felgate said. "No one can say, this is the year you are going to do well."

Henman has always been reluctant to make predictions ahead of major tournaments. But he believes that he is better equipped than ever to meet the challenges of Wimbledon. "This month is the highlight of every year for me," he said. "Coming into Wimbledon last year I was only ranked 50 or 60. This year I'm in the top 20, I am seeded 14 and I think there are numerous ways in which I have improved as a player."

Coach Felgate was, as ever, keeping a close eye on his charge, and agreed that progress had been made since last June. "The serve has come on," Felgate said. "But his all-round game is coming on, and there is still quite a bit to come. In my opinion Tim is far from the finished article."

The notion that Henman would improve for the addition of a few pounds of muscle has long been doing the rounds among tennis-watchers. But Felgate feels this may be misguided. "The physical thing is one of the factors," Felgate reckoned. "But it is not such a big deal. Tim is never going to be really big, looking at the size of his frame. One of the things that people get wrong is that some more strength would help but that is not for hitting shots, it's for injury protection, for lasting longer in the game, for feeling good about oneself."

Self-esteem and longevity are part of the plan, of course, and here Felgate and his wife Jan, who looks after Henman's affairs at the IMG management organisation, play the crucial roles, while Henman derives further support from another IMG employee, his 24-year-old television director girlfriend Lucy Heald. "Tim can be confident now that he has a career," Felgate said. "He might lose early in his next two events, and people will say 'What's happened to Tim Henman?' Well, that's fine, people can write it, because I know that that will just have been a short-term blip when you look at the graph. He's going to have a career that is going to last and that is why he has signed these long-term contracts, because he is going to be around. You can't pick and choose when you have those highs and lows, all you can do is prepare yourself and be ready to play."

This careful form of words covers Henman's erratic form in the warm-up tournaments for Wimbledon this year. He has lost to the good and the ordinary in Byron Black and Jens Knippschild, and beaten only those he should have beaten in Andrew Richardson and Richard Fromberg. His touch and rhythm have been elusive since the elbow operation, but he has remained stoical, grateful for every match on grass.

Part of the preparation has involved rationing the amount of lucrative promotional work that Henman does, and making sure that his public appearances are frequent and substantial enough to gratify the fans without exhausting the player. This is where the other half of the Felgate menage comes into play. "The promotional side of things is part and parcel of being a sportsman today," Felgate declared. "If you want to make money - and that is not why Tim is in the game - but if you want to make money you sign the contracts and you do the other stuff that goes with it. You can't just take the money and run. That's why with Jan and I you get the combination."

The close relationship between coach and manager is something that is more common in boxing than tennis, but it clearly reduces the pressure on Henman and when on public duty his eyes constantly flick to one or the other Felgate. He is not expecting them to intervene, or to reinterpret what he says - he is much too self-assured for that - he simply likes to know that they are there. But suggest to him that the arrangement is unusually cosy and he bridles. "That's not the way I feel," he said. "I've been with David for five years and obviously that's worked very well, and I've been with IMG for getting on for three years but it's just a coincidence that I'm being looked after by David's wife. It's a situation that seems to work."

One of the reasons that it works is that Felgate and, more recently, his wife, have been working with a talent that has developed gradually. The wider British public may feel that Henman has exploded on to the scene within the last 12 months, but in reality it is public awareness that has been kindled. "You do get people who at 17 or 18 are destined to go to the top of the game and everything is being groomed and they keep going towards that," Felgate said. But that was not the case when he first took charge of Henman's training. "With Tim, it was slower. You knew at 17 that if he wanted to get there he might, but nobody knew this was going to happen. He's still learning. Last year was big for him and now this year he is still on the learning curve."

But those dedicated fans who will sleep on Wimbledon pavements next week in expectation of a home-grown champion do not want to hear about learning curves. Last year, they were surprised and delighted to have a new hero. This year, they expect him to deliver. Felgate recognised the change. "Last year was big for Tim," he said. "But now this year he's coming back as a favourite and a seed and a showpiece on the courts. Last year the crowd warmed to him because he was British and he was winning. Now, they are actually coming to watch him. Which is greater expectation on him, but that is what you play for. You play to be good. You have to want to play in the best places, and one thing that we know now about Tim is that he can perform on that occasion. If he does lose a match, it's because the other player was better on the day, it won't be because Tim froze or the occasion got to him."

Very little seems to get to Henman. In a warm-up match for Wimbledon at Surbiton, he dealt with a spectacularly lousy line-call and an intrusive photographer with one laconic line: "Was that in? Are you sure that lens wasn't getting in your way?" Endless press questioning, he says, doesn't irritate him, although he does get a little bored with post-match press conferences. It all comes with the territory, it's all part of the plan.

But what if the plan were to be disrupted - by an injury, say, more serious than a dodgy elbow? "Touch wood," he said, "I don't have to think about it. But I might break my leg tomorrow, who knows what's going to happen? I don't know - I could, er -" his eyes flicked over to a nearby Felgate "- there's lots of options available to me. When I was leaving school at 16 I thought that I could always go back to education but I couldn't go back to being a 16-year-old ready to learn my trade. But hopefully I won't have to cross that bridge."

It is a measure of Henman's composure that only such a pessimistically unfair question could catch him short of a ready response. There is little doubt, anyway, that when the time finally comes for Tim Henman to consider hanging up his racket, someone will be standing by to employ his articulacy and sang-froid behind a microphone. But in the meantime there is some unfinished business: a place in the world's top ten and - this year or next, but sometime - victory at Wimbledon. Throughout June's troubled preparations, Henman's focus has remained resolute. "I'm not playing my best tennis," he admitted in Nottingham. "But it's next week that counts, not this."