Tim's TV plea

Henman defuses the Scud.

14 April 2012

Tim Henman today urged tennis and television chiefs to put his chance of Wimbledon glory before audience ratings.

Britain's No1 wants the tournament organisers to ignore pressure from television schedulers who want to turn his quarter-final clash with Mario Ancic into another ratings winner, and put him on Centre Court early.

Fifth seed Henman defeated Mark Philippoussis 6-2, 7-5, 6-7, 7-6 in the gathering gloom last night after the BBC won the battle to put him on as the third match on the show court.

But as a result there was a real danger of the match not finishing if it had gone into a fifth set. That would have ruined Henman's rest day before the quarter-final.

Tomorrow's matches start at 1pm and Henman wants to be first on. He said: "I wouldn't be surprised if they put me on second on Wednesday, but I would like to be first."

While Henman worries about the scheduling of a match that could earn him a potential semi-final against second seed Andy Roddick, Philippoussis issued an apology for swearing last night. He told the umpire "f*** your Cyclops" in reference to the courtside machine that is meant to bleep when serves are too long, after a contested decision.

Last year's beaten finalist was given a warning for the outburst and is likely to be fined. Philippoussis said: "Of course it's not a good situation to be in with kids watching at that time and I do apologise. But it was a spur-ofthemoment thing.

"A lot of people swear and what can you do? I was clearly upset and I showed it - simple as that. I am not the type of guy who shows a lot of emotion out there on court. If I do argue then there is going to be some clear cause."

Henman also had close calls that went against him and said: "There's going to be tight calls. We're hitting close to the lines and hitting pretty quickly. Sometimes they go in your favour, sometimes they don't. But I don't envy the line judges or the umpires. It's a tough job.

"Both Mark and I felt there were some dubious serves. I felt like I hit some serves and thought 'God, that looked out to me'. There was no call. You just want to make sure the guy's operating the machinery correctly."

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