Pressure
Falls,
Not Henman
He Earns First Title in U.S., Aided in Large Part by Relaxing
By Rachel Nichols
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 4, 2003; Page D01
There are some things you never seem to find until you give up looking for them: A remote control. An extra set of car keys. An elite tennis career.
England's Tim Henman had spent years desperately, frantically, anxiously trying to become this sport's Next Big Thing, yet every time he got close, he would trip over his own nerves. It wasn't until he stopped searching so hard that his path became clear, and yesterday in the Legg Mason Tennis Classic final he took a giant step forward in a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Chilean whirlwind Fernando Gonzalez.
"My record in finals has not been particularly good, and part of the problem has been that I've wanted it too badly, put a little too much pressure on myself, and that did affect my performance," said Henman, 28, who before yesterday hadn't won a title in a year and a half and had never won a title in the United States. In the past, those very facts would have twisted his brain into a pretzel, but as he clutched his $75,000 winner's check, he seemed more than a little loose.
"When I'm playing my best, I'm out there having fun," he said. "That was my strategy coming in here, and I'll be honest -- it's worked much better than I thought it would."
Henman can be forgiven for not discovering this sooner, as he was practically swaddled in expectation from birth. His grandfather competed at Wimbledon, as did his great grandmother, who in 1901 became the first woman to serve overarm. In a country where no native man has won Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936, that alone would be enough to anoint him a contender, and when Henman showed significant promise as a junior, particularly on grass, he became Britain's official hope.
For years, the pressure gripped him like a vise, and in one stretch he appeared in seven straight tournament finals without winning a single one. The Grand Slams were a whole other problem entirely. Henman has never advanced past the fourth round of any Slam other than Wimbledon, and while he is a four-time semifinalist at the All-England club, he has never made it to the final there.
When he cracked into the top 10 each of the last three years but never finished in the top five, he seemed destined to make a career out of the word "almost." But a shoulder injury that began acting up last summer required surgery over the winter, and he continued to experience pain this spring. The whole experience forced him to reevaluate both his physical training and his mental approach.
"It's never a question with me of just trying harder, that's not going to make it better. I'm always out there trying 100 percent," he said. So instead of attempting for 200 percent, he tried just being happy with where he was.
He spent the three weeks after Wimbledon resting, not arriving in Washington until the night before the tournament started. And while he hoped to win a couple matches, his main focus was to simply work on his game, or as he said the other day, "just get to be a better player."
The effect was that Henman was completely relaxed, even when his matches got tight. After coming from behind in his semifinal win over American wunderkind Andy Roddick on Saturday, Henman shrugged at the way Roddick had thumped him 6-1 in the first set, saying, "It's only one set."
Gonzalez, meantime, only got more wound up the farther he advanced through the tournament. Excitable by nature, Gonzalez was practically ready to explode on Saturday night after winning an emotional semifinal against top seed and boyhood idol Andre Agassi.
By yesterday, he seemed worn. He still attacked the ball with his trademark bravado, smacking shots as if points were being awarded for how much they dented the court, but instead of watching those shots fall in, he saw the majority of them skip out. He fell down 4-0 before getting any rhythm going, and while he nearly held Henman off from winning the first set, he promptly allowed Henman to break him again at the start of the second.
"I didn't have too many chances, always I was down in the score, and I never felt like I could come back," said Gonzalez, who was also bothered by a sore back and several rain delays. "I tried and tried, but it wasn't my day."
In fact, the only time Gonzalez was able to make a real stand was toward the end of the match, when Henman appeared to feel his first wisps of pressure. Gonzalez held Henman off for three match points, but when Henman finally batted in a forehand swing volley, the title was his.
He immediately took a ball out of his pocket and tried to swat it to the crowd. Instead it sailed extremely high, over the upper rows of the stadium and into the trees beyond. He laughed.
"This was the most relaxed I've been all week," he said. "I just felt like internally I had a lot of confidence."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company