TENNIS: In the week of the scattered seeds, Tim Henman has remained steady, his game yesterday better than just good at Roland Garros. This is an aberration of sorts, not that Henman is demonstrably playing surprisingly good tennis but because he is doing it in the 16th arrondissement on clay, a surface that has turned and humiliated him more than once in the past.
By defeating Spain's Galo Blanco in straight sets yesterday, Henman makes his first venture into the round of 16. It is also the first time a British player has gotten so far since Greg Rusedski in 1999. Five times in the last six years he has departed in less than a handful of days. This is not the Henman we are used to watching. This is not the wandering mind, the beaten-schoolboy, hang dog Henman. This one looks capable and scrappy, as though he's just woken up to something new and with his 19-ace serve working as stingingly as it did out on court number one, a menace now too to the remaining players.
This is big talk for a player like Henman. But the draw has also been an outrageous benefactor to the British number one in that the deeper he goes in to the competition, the worse his opponents are rated by the world rankings computer. He has moved from playing the world number 79 in the first round, Cyril Saulnier, to Germany's Lars Burgsmuller at number 91 in round two and yesterday to Blanco ranked 95 in the world. His next round opponent, France's Michael Llodra, at 94 almost keeps the sequence going. In fact Henman, the ninth seed, cannot now meet anyone seeded higher than him until the semi finals.
After the first set, which Henman won 7-6 on a tiebreak, the match had the feel of a five chapter blockbuster. Given that he had blood tests and an ECG earlier in the week because of a virus that was making him unusually tired, the last thing Henman needed was a marathon in hot Parisian sunshine against a natural baseline competitor. Quite quickly and astonishingly, he turned the match entirely in his favour. The serve accurate and strong, his passing and net work sharp and consistent, Henman dropped only six points in the first five games, winning the second set 6-1. The third was almost as good and having lost his serve at the start, he broke back immediately and again in the final game for 6-2, all in under two hours.
The questions directed at him afterwards inevitably revolved around being able to tell which Henman is going to turn up on court on any given time. On the first day he was two sets down before having to fight back to stay in the competition. Now he has a reasonable chance of getting into next week.
"Yeah, I'm pleased," he said. "I reflected on how I felt at two sets to love. I feel pretty awful physically. Mentally I was not really thinking about my game and I was a bit frustrated. I've been able to turn around my form and that's given me four or five extra days to start feeling better.
"Now I'm feeling a bit stronger. Still after some long rallies and long games, I still feel a bit on the weak side. But it definitely marked improvement from the first round." Just how the tiger got back into Tim though remains a mystery, but taking more risk for greater return has been part of it. The presumption is that he will continue with the policy.
"You've got to be big enough to say I've committed to it (a shot) and I didn't execute it as well as I would have liked and I lost. In the past I would have tried to roll a serve into the middle of the box and lets see what happens, see if I can win this point somehow. That will keep me at eight or 10 in the world. Where I want to go, it's not going to get me to that level." On the other side of the draw Marat Safin came through in his match against Felix Mantilla, which carried over from Thursday. If Henman's concentration occasionally wanders off, then the Spain based Russian is a veritable Walter Mitty. Loaded with talent Safin is a text book underachiever. The surly giant took four hours and 37 minutes to finally crack the French man 11-9 in the fifth set.
Safin drew the ire of officialdom when he dropped his shorts on court and was awarded a penalty point. Naturally the Russian took this sleight on his sense of humour badly.
"Really they have no clue about tennis," he said. "All of the people who run the sport, they have no clue. It is a pity that the tennis is really going down the drain. It's really a pity."
French Open Results
MEN'S SINGLES: Second round: (20) M Safin (Rus) bt F Mantilla (Spa) 6-4 2-6 6-2 6-7 (4-7) 11-9.
MEN'S SINGLES: Third round: M Llodra (Fra) bt J Jeanpierre (Fra) 6-2 6-2 6-3, (9) T Henman (Brit) bt G Blanco (Spa) 7-6 (7-3) 6-1 6-2, (22) J Chela (Arg) bt A Corretja (Spa) 6-4 6-4 4-6 6-3, N Escude (Fra) bt M Youzhny (Rus) 6-2 7-5 6-7 (3-7) 6-2, (17) T Robredo (Spa) bt (11) N Massu (Chi) 6-2 6-0 6-2, (3) G Coria (Arg) bt M Ancic (Cro) 6-3 6-1 6-2, (5) C Moya (Spa) bt R Sluiter (Ned) 6-0 6-3 6-4, O Mutis (Fra) bt F Santoro (Fra) 6-0 6-2 6-3.
WOMEN'S SINGLES: Third round: M Weingartner (Ger) bt (8) N Petrova (Rus) 6-3 6-2, (18) M Sharapova (Rus) bt (10) V Zvonareva (Rus) 6-3 7-6 (7-3), (14) P Suarez (Arg) bt T Perebiynis (Ukr) 6-3 6-3, (5) L Davenport (USA) bt M Irvin (USA) 6-1 6-4, (21) M Maleeva (Bul) bt M Shaughnessy (USA) 6-3 7-6 (7-3), (3) A Mauresmo (Fra) bt A Santonja (Spa) 6-3 6-2, J Zheng (Chn) bt T Garbin (Ita) 5-7 7-6 (7-1) 6-2, (9) E Dementieva (Rus) bt (19) A Smashnova-Pistolesi (Isr) 0-6 7-6 (7-2) 0-1 ret.
MEN'S DOUBLES: Second round: (7) W Black (Zim), K Ullyett (Zim) bt J Kerr (Aus), T Vanhoudt (Bel) 6-3 6-4, Y Allegro (Swi), M Kohlmann (Ger) bt (16) T Cibulec (Cze), P Pala (Cze) 1-6 7-6 (7-4) 6-1, (3) M Bhupathi (Ind), M Mirnyi (Blr) bt K Kucera (Svk), T Perry (Aus) 4-6 7-6 (7-2) 6-4.
WOMEN'S DOUBLES: Second round: (2) S Kuznetsova (Rus), E Likhovtseva (Rus) bt A Cargill (USA), N Miyagi (Jpn) 6-4 6-2, (1) V Ruano Pascual (Spa), P Suarez (Arg) bt J Russell (USA), M Santangelo (Ita) 6-1 6-2, (15) S F Elia (Ita), F Schiavone (Ita) bt T Perebiynis (Ukr), S Talaja (Cro) 6-4 6-3, (5) M Navratilova (USA), L Raymond (USA) bt T Garbin (Ita), S Reeves (USA) 6-2 ret.
