THE TennisReporters.net NEWSLETTER: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, No. 104

Tim unleashes his tiger on the press
Will the Briton feel at ease in Houston? Henman: 'I seem to have ruffled a few feathers'

By Eleanor Preston, Special to TennisReporters.net

Art Seitz

Tim Henman practices his serve in front of coach Paul Anacone.

According to the locals, the weather in Houston is normally beautifully warm and sunny at this time of year. Yet at 2004 Tennis Masters Cup Houston, which starts Monday, there is a definite chill in the Texas air.

As Tim Henman put it, "Everything is under control except the weather. It's a bit cold at the moment." Henman takes on Andy Roddick on Tuesday night before turning his attention to Marat Safin and Guillermo Coria, his cohorts in the Blue round robin group.

The dampness and unseasonal cold which greeted arrivals in Houston was nothing, though, to the frostiness that currently exists between Henman and most of the British tennis press corps, which, as usual, will be in attendance to cover their man's every forehand and post-match utterance at the Tennis Masters Cup.

Most neutrals would take one look at the crushing weight of positive press Henman has received in British national newspapers this year and expect the normally affable 30-year-old to be delighted with the way his 2004 season has been covered. For example, pages and pages were devoted to his run to the semifinals of Roland Garros in May and yet more were cleared to catalogue his equally laudable feat in making the last four at the US Open. Many sports desks even chose to overlook the fact that he hasn't won a title in a year which he regards as the best of his career, while top-ranked Roger Federer has won 10.

Presumably Henman was too busy playing tennis to read any of it, for twice in the last month he has rounded on the traveling troupe of British tennis writers with a venom that belies his reputation for gentlemanly courtesy.

'the worst in the world'
"Our media is possibly the worst in the world," Henman told Zurich's Tages Anzeiger. "Unfortunately, that's part of our culture. When you speak to tennis journalists, you notice how little they understand."

Henman recounted going into the press room during Great Britain's Davis Cup tie against Luxembourg last April and, to ease his own boredom, holding a pop quiz on tennis tactics. "I started asking technical and tactical questions," Henman explained to Anzeiger, "and it was embarrassing. I was embarrassed for them. They knew nothing; they knew nothing about the game. I've never been influenced by their opinions anyway but now we are talking tennis and they didn't know anything."

As if to prove it wasn't a one-off tantrum, Henman said much the same thing to France's Le Figaro during the Paris Masters, much to the amusement of the rest of the press room at the Palais Omnisports, where the British contingent were teased by their international colleagues about their only homegrown player's attitude toward them. Lighthearted cries of "the worse media in the world" were heard and much giggling ensued.

"I seem to have ruffled a few feathers," said Henman, via his personal web site, often his chosen (uncritical) forum. He further justified his comments by suggesting that the British tennis press were comparatively thin-skinned, considering the criticism which he has had to endure throughout his eight or so years in the public eye.

The London Times' Simon Barnes, perhaps Britain's foremost sports columnist and a man who has observed both Henman and the specialist British tennis writers at close quarters, rushed to the defense of his fellow scribes.

'get the score right and to do it all by half-past six'
"Journalists write for an audience," wrote Barnes. "Tennis writers are not hired to be tactical experts. They are hired to tell the tale: to give us plot and character and, if possible, dialogue, to get the score right and to do it all by half-past six. Pleasing athletes is not the job of the sporting press. It is pleasing readers."

Art Seitz

The ATP Masters Cup players: Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt, Marat Safin, Carlos Moya, Guillermo Coria, Tim Henman, Gaston Gaudio, Guillermo Cañas.

Reactions amongst the UK's tennis journalists themselves ranged from mildly indignant to highly amused, but not one of them complained about being handed a story by Henman on what was a slow week for news.

Suddenly the British No. 1, a man who cheerfully admitted to being evasive, misleading and deliberately dull in his press conferences, was letting his true feelings out and smearing his crisp, white image with a mucky streak of petulant defensiveness. [Henman did assure one regular tennis reporter that his comments were not directed at him, but at those who overly-criticize him and have no apparent base of tennis knowledge from which to do so.]

Now that Henman has at last got in touch with his inner diva (or is it devil), those who will be sitting in the press seats in Houston will be only too delighted if he has another go at them and re-ignites the story. After all, they are paid to fill column inches, the same acres of newsprint, incidentally, which raise Henman's profile, thereby keeping his sponsors happy and his bank balance buoyed by the millions he is paid to endorse products such as clothes, rackets and washing powder.

Henman's press conferences in Paris were reportedly painfully polite and terribly British affairs, with both press and player far too bound by etiquette to mention the row, though there was an unmistakable undercurrent of awkwardness which will surely still be present in Houston.

Whatever Henman's result against Roddick – against whom, incidentally, the Briton has a 3-1 winning record – those braving the post-match press conference will be well advised to wrap up warm.

Preston hails from Britain and is the co-president of the International Tennis Writers Association.