Arise, Sir Tim Henman. It has a nice ring. All the English hope has to do is win seven games of tennis. Goran Ivanisevic did it two years ago. He arrived from Croatia with a damaged arm and a violently destructive serve and they let him into the tournament as a wild card. He chewed painkillers and anti-inflammatory pills for a fortnight and, riddled with superstitions, ate the same meal in the same restaurant at the same table every evening, writes Johnny Watterson
For 14 days Ivanisevic terrified himself and left his insides on the court. When he had finally bludgeoned Pat Rafter into submission on men's final day, he ripped off his shirt, beat his chest like Cro-Magnon man and began an almost feral triumphal march around Wimbledon.
At that moment you could see that it was the prizefighter inside Ivanisevic that had won him the title, not tennis. You could understand the voices that he spoke of inside his head, his desolation in defeat in previous years.
How do you feel, Goran? "I feel I am going to kill myself."
How do you feel Tim? "OK, there are positives and negatives, I suppose."
Ivanisevic is Fight Club, Henman is A Room With a View. Lleyton Hewitt is Rocky II, Henman is The Remains of the Day - Merchant Ivory through and through. Where Ivanisevic's instinct is profanity and aggression, Henman's is decorum and moderation. When Hewitt screams, it is primal and apocalyptic; Henman's motivational punch is absurdly awkward, a self-conscious pantomime.
Yet every year at SW19 the British strap on their expectations, lash him with praise and run him into Centre Court like a pack mule.
The gormless optimism that is Henman Hill, a sizeable acreage of grass inside the Wimbledon arena populated by people who can't get tickets for the show courts, don't see that the 29-year-old is like a middle-distance runner without a kick. The mule will run so far on the grass, but come semi-final day the load becomes overwhelming and even beating him with sticks won't budge him an inch.
Henman's talent has always been obvious but for the last 10 years the British number one has displayed a chronic competitive chromosomal deficiency that is exposed each year in London. Ironic that, because he appears to be the perfect product of tennis cloning. Created in the laboratory of Oxfordshire's middle England, his genetic pool is a splicing of his father Tony, a county-standard tennis player, and his grandfather and great grandmother, both of whom played at Wimbledon. But somewhere along the line, the rogue gene that drives the Hewitts and Andy Roddicks and Ivanisevics of the tennis jamboree was lost to Henman. Although this year we have seen a sparkier player, we continue to wonder if it is another chapter in the grand illusion.
This year at the French Open in Roland Garros, he almost proved his critics wrong when he tore apart the best clay-court player in the world, Argentina's Guillermo Coria, for a set and a half in the semi-final. On a clay surface he doesn't care for, Henman quickened the heartbeat and again sent expectations soaring.
Of course he lost, then arrived on his beloved grass at Queens and departed first round to a player most people had never heard of before.
Still, Wimbledon will arrive on Monday without fail and hover over him like the giant alien ship in Independence Day, threatening and demanding. The BBC will run its soft-focus features asking "will this finally be Tim's year?", the interview taking place in his lavishly furnished sitting-room in London, his tightly buttoned wife Lucy hovering somewhere in the background for decorative effect.
Wimbledon represents not so much hope as a looming reminder that tennis in England (and Ireland) has not yet broken away from its quaint moorings. Despite the huge success of the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club Championships and the tens of millions of pounds profit it makes each year, much of it pumped back into the game in Britain, there has not been a local winner since Virginia Wade in 1977. And that hurts.
Ginny arrives to watch each year, with her distinctive drawl, and daily passes the statue of Fred Perry, the last male Briton to have won the championship. But Perry's 1936 landmark has also become a date from a horror movie, his bronze figure standing there like Freddy Kruger, eerie and stubbornly reminding all of its grim significance in tennis history.
Still Henman's eye-catching riff at Roland Garros has ignited earlier-than-usual speculation that this may be his year and, in truth, his record at Wimbledon is enviable in a second-best type of way. Apart from two efforts in 1994 and 1995 when he had yet to break into the world's top 100 and went out in the first and second rounds respectively, Henman has set a mark of consistency. Only one player, Sampras, has set a better example for aspiring champions.
Over those fertile eight years Henman has reached the semi-final four times, the quarter-final three times, and was once beaten in the fourth round. But his form since the autumn of last year has added another element to the bagful of reasons to be hopeful.
His new association with Paul Annacone, Sampras's former coach, has lifted his ranking back into the top 10. Henman also argues that only one of his four semi-final defeats at Wimbledon could be classed as self-inflicted.
"I lost to Sampras twice when he was the best in the world and I lost to Lleyton Hewitt when he was number one," said Henman. "In those four semi-finals my opponent was a bit better than me on the given day on three occasions. As for Goran Ivanisevic in 2001, well, I played a really good match, lost my serve twice in five sets and came second."
Henman will turn 30 in September and soon even local enthusiasm will start to dim as England looks not just for a tennis hero but for any champion. The recent cricket series win over New Zealand has been an antidote of sorts to the more absurd stunts such as the presentation of Audley Harrison as a credible heavyweight champion, while Paula Radcliffe's regular readjustment of her pain threshold on the track and roads shows the bottle that the England football team and Henman have not yet discovered.
The heroes in English sport are found in the amateur ranks of rowing, sailing and hockey, but their stage and profiles are too small to satisfy public hunger. England craves the dimensions of another Rugby World Cup win.
Henman is the closest thing to that iconic position and four times he has been but one match away from the visit to the Palace. But he has been a reluctant role model and seems riddled with self-doubt. He is self-analytical, too fair in his assessment of his tennis ability, and unable to take his game beyond his talent in the way Ivanisevic was able to do a couple of years ago.
Annacone has the wisdom of over a dozen Grand Slams with Sampras. Normally his words are well-chosen.
"Tim is finally beginning to understand how he has got to play," says the American.
For Henman it is a question of how many roads he must go down before we can finally call him a champion. And maybe now it's too late.
Who is he?
He's the great British hope on whose shoulders the dream of a Wimbledon win has been placed for the last eight years
Why in the news?
He had a run to the semi-finals at the French Open, so the expectations are even higher this year that Henman can become the first British winner of Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936
Most appealing characteristic?
His middle England demeanour, good manners and common sense
Least appealing characteristic?
Occasionally wet and spiritless in matches, especially the big ones, such as Wimbledon semi-finals
Most likely to say?
"There's always next year"
Least likely to say?
"You are nothing but a w****r, umpire"