Hero Henman serves up TV epic

No wonder the schedulers are so keen on giving the British No1 another early evening slot but viewers will have to wait 24 hours before they can see the fifth seed's clash with Croatia's unseeded Mario Ancic and that should give everyone - Henman included - time to recover.

The fourth round battle with Philippoussis only added to the Henman story at these championships which has so many twists it hardly needed another series of stomach-churning manoeuvres.

But this is Wimbledon, and Henman is never going to do it the easy way. The fans in the stands and the millions watching at home know what's coming and that only adds to the sense of theatre.

This latest episode featured some hardy perennial plot lines: Hero Henman takes control and appears to be destroying his hapless opponent who suddenly finds inspiration from a dodgy line call and transforms himself into a man possessed; then an apparent stalemate is broken by Henman's chance to kill off the match, only for him to throw those chances away before dragging triumph from the jaws of potential defeat. All this drama packed into a total running time of three hours seven minutes. Talk about value for money.

Henman made no apology for keeping everyone on the edge of their seats, saying:" I can't say I do it on purpose! I am aware of the tension but it's a lot of fun out there. I wanted to finish it so that I didn't need to come back the next day."

There were even a couple of unrehearsed cameos featuring a five-strong group of pigeons who tried to dive bomb the players and a ball boy who ever so slightly slipped to give the crowd an opportunity to let out a huge belly laugh.

Given the ease with which a Wimbledon Centre Court crowd gives up its laughter it's a wonder ITV haven't started filming all of their dreadful comedy output in the most famous tennis stadium in the world.

In truth, laughs were few and far between last night as the British No1 battled to maintain his bid for a first Wimbledon title.

The flags that had so recently been waved in celebration of football deeds were pressed into service and while their numbers did not match those seen on People's Sunday, it was a good effort.

With Henman breezing through the opening two sets with a quality of tennis that made Philippoussis look leadenfooted and on course for a swift exit, the need for frenzied crowd support was minimal. Even the line judges appeared to be speeding Henman towards a swift triumph after a crucial call allowed him to serve out the second set.

However, that incident and another which led to Philippoussis, the 11th seed, receiving a code violation for foul language, fired up the Australian to such an extent that he took the third set on tie-break as Henman's quality of tennis started to waver.

The mini-crisis saw Henman suddenly increase his tempo and the crowd was treated to the first fist pump from their hero as he took a 4-2 lead in the fourth set and those flags were ready to register a great win when the lead increased to 5-2.

It was at this point in the script, the twist appeared. Henman threw away this advantage and two matchpoints-were squandered as Philippoussis started to produce the form that had seen him reach last year's final. A Philippoussis break of serve tied matters and the match headed into another tie-break, with the crowd and the players starting to believe it could mean a fifth set - played the next day.

After the first three points of the tie-break went against the serve, Henman fed off the energy of the partisan crowd and restored some order to the chaos. Even then, he didn't make it a clean kill, allowing Philippoussis to save two more match points before taking the tie break 7-5 and the match 29 minutes after he first tried to win it.

If Henman repeats the form he showed in those opening two sets, when two serve and volleyers reminded the fans what it was like to witness grass court tennis played as God had intended, then he will roll Ancic over in straights sets.

The 6ft 5in Croat first served notice of his ability in 2000 when he reached the final of Junior Wimbledon and two years later, on his Grand Slam debut at Centre Court, he beat the then No7 seed Roger Federer in the first round.

"It's going to help that I've played there already," said Ancic. "I know what it's like to play where there's a big atmosphere. I know what can happen."

For Ancic, the quarter-final is going to be a truly daunting affair. Let's hope he is fan of early evening television.