Tennis: Henman raising his own temperature

On another cold night in the Gulf, Tim Henman advanced to the quarter-finals of the $1m Qatar Mobil Open with victory over Guillaume Raoux. It was in straight sets, but not straightforward, as John Roberts reports from Doha.

Tim Henman said he had played in colder weather in Peking and had been chilly indoors in Antwerp. He also mentioned that Wimbledon can get pretty cold at times. "You just get on with it," he said. "Coming from England, you're used to it."

A finalist here a year ago, Henman advanced to the last eight by overcoming difficulty both with the blustery weather and a strong-willed opponent, Guillaume Raoux, a Frenchman he had beaten in their two previous matches, including the second round of the Australian Open.

"You have to play the conditions a bit, and sometimes you can be too critical of yourself," Henman said, adding: "I don't think you want to be playing your best tennis right now."

The contradiction there is that Henman did play some of his best tennis at the beginning of last year. Encouraged by reaching his first ATP Tour final here, where he lost to Jim Courier, Henman went on to win the Sydney International.

Ominously, the 23-year-old has lost his opening service games in his first two matches here, and he is well aware that other opponents - such as his next one, Petr Korda - are likely to capitalise more. "I've got to play my first service game the way I play my second service game," Henman said. "I've got to be more aggressive."

Henman prevailed last night, 7-5, 6-4, because Raoux, in spite of his powerful wrists, was unable to generate his own pace on the occasions when the Briton was offering him none. "Except for the serve, when Henman hits the ball it is like cotton-wool for me," Raoux said. "That's why I always find it difficult to play against him. Considering the three elements - the wind, the cold, and the bad line-calling - I think we both played a good match."

Having recovered the early break to level at 3-3, Henman cracked Raoux a second time in the 12th game, returning a second serve and luring the Frenchman into putting a lob out on the third set point.

It seemed that Henman would cruise through the second set after he broke for 2-0 and then created two game points for 3-0. Unable to secure either of them, Henman then missed a backhand volley to give Raoux a break point. A forehand over the baseline brought the Frenchman back into the contest.

The net-cord helped Raoux save a break point in the sixth game, and Henman lapsed into successive double-faults, compounding the errors by playing a forehand long to offer the Frenchman two break points in the seventh game.

He was unable to take advantage, and was denied two more after Henman double-faulted again at 4-4. On this occasion, the Briton delivered an impressive backhand volley and produced an unstoppable forehand drive.

Raoux's prospects of a third set evaporated in the next game. Unnerved by Henman's forehand drive down the line for 30-30, he overhit a forehand and then missed with a backhand off a second service return.

"It was frustrating to let him back into the match," Henman said, "but when that happens you've got to deal with it." Which is what he did.

Goran Ivanisevic, who is projected to play top seed Greg Rusedski in the semi-finals, survived an epic duel with Switzerland's Marc Rosset. Having won a first set tie-break, 7-4, Rosset had a match point when serving at 5-3 in the second set. He double-faulted four times, Ivanisevic adding to the agony by hitting four aces in the next game. The Croat went on to win, 6-7, 7-5, 7-5.

Ivanisevic, who is in dispute with the Croatian Tennis Federation and has refused to play in the Davis Cup tie against Finland on 14 February, confirmed his intention to play football instead for his home town club, Hajduk Split, against Croatia Zagreb. "I have trained with the juniors for two and a half weeks," he said, "and if I am not in the semi-finals in Dubai I'll go back and play on the left wing for the last 10 minutes."