Tired Tim's elbow grief

Britain's Davis Cup prospects took a turn for the worse here yesterday when Tim Henman's elbow injury flared again and made him doubtful, along with Greg Rusedski, for the tie against Zimbabwe at Crystal Palace in two weeks.

Henman's first outing as the Most Improved Player on the ATP Tour ended in defeat at the Lipton Championships, beaten by Julian Alonso, a Spanish qualifier ranked No 228 in the world playing his first tournament on a hard court. The British No 1 was in good company, Andre Agassi, the defending champion, losing to the Australian left-hander Scott Draper, 7-6 6-1, in only 80 minutes. It was Agassi's fourth consecutive opening-round defeat and the first time he has suffered five defeats in a row. He will drop out of the world top 20 in the next rankings list.

Henman, given a bye in the first round as the No 14 seed, experienced pain in his right elbow in losing the second-round match, 7-6 2-6 3-6. Rusedski is back in London nursing the wrist injury that caused him to retire against Pete Sampras during the San Jose final last month.

Henman, presented with his ATP Tour Award last Wednesday, was clearly not able to give of his best against Alonso, a 19-year-old from Barcelona who served well and hit powerful groundstrokes. "It probably wasn't the smartest thing to do to play today," said Henman, describing his condition as a "loose body in the elbow" that has troubled him periodically since the age of 11.

"With regards to the Davis Cup," he added, "I think if I was playing another tournament next week I wouldn't be playing. It's a question of weighing things up, deciding what's best for me and whether I am able to get in some worthwhile practice time before the tie starts to be worth me playing." Britain need to win the Group One tie in the Euro/African Zone in order to participate in the World Group qualifying round in September.

Andrew Richardson, a 22-year-old left-hander, has already been included in the British squad along with Henman, Rusedski and Neil Broad, the doubles specialist. Mark Petchey, dropped from the original five, could be recalled if necessary by the captain, David Lloyd.

Henman could have lost in straight sets yesterday but he managed to recover from 0-2 and then 5-5, 15-30, to win the tie-break, 7-4. "I didn't do myself any favours going out today," he said, "but I seemed to be OK in practice. I didn't feel it was possible to really go after my serve and be as aggressive as I wanted. But Alonso is obviously a very good player. I'm sure in a few weeks, when the clay court season comes around, we'll be hearing lots more of him.''

While Henman was losing to Alonso on Court No 2, Boris Becker announced his withdrawal from the tournament because of tendinitis in the wrist he first injured at Wimbledon last summer. "The injury is basically gone," Becker said, "but I'm not strong enough yet. I need to build up muscles, build up strength. It's something which is going to take, hopefully, another two or three weeks. I'm back on the court, I'm able to play 45 minutes to an hour pain-free, but that's just practice. I haven't played any real sets yet in practice.''