Tennis: Wimbledon 99 - Rain disrupts Henman's gathering momentum

PERHAPS THE Wimbledon crowd had read Jim Courier's words in an interview at the weekend. "It's instinctive for me to play well when everything's against me," he said. "It forces me to go deeper inside and focus more." When Courier and Tim Henman arrived on the Centre Court for their fourth- round match yesterday afternoon, the place was barely half-full, the absentees presumably detained by the usual imperatives of corporate hospitality. No chance of a cauldron of Henmania, to say the least.

As it happened, a light drizzle during the knock-up forced a 50-minute postponement of the start. When the players returned, the attendance was more in keeping with the occasion. But even then the crowd seemed subdued, as if too fervent a display of their loyalty might damage their favourite's chances - either by exerting an intolerable pressure on him or by provoking his opponent to the sort of deeds witnessed in the Davis Cup tie at Birmingham a few weeks ago. Then Courier beat both Henman and Greg Rusedski in five- set matches that demonstrated the apparently inexhaustible reserves of grit available to an American who won four Grand Slam tournaments early in this decade but is currently ranked 61st in the world, 55 places below Henman.

Courier's success in taking the first set, which included another rain break, further dampened their ardour, and the shouts of "Come on, Tim" were individually audible. If his supporters were indeed using apathy as a tactic, they must have been pleased by their success when Henman squeezed ahead to win the second and third sets, although without showing convincing form. With the score at 4-6, 7-5, 7-5, 4-3, and with Courier leading 30-15 on his serve, a lengthier outbreak of drizzle again brought the players off at 5.52pm, after two hours and 46 minutes of play. This time it was for good, and hostilities will resume today.

Henman's performance in the first set was dictated entirely by his inability to get his first service to fire efficiently, a problem that has dogged him throughout the tournament and which may have been exacerbated yesterday by the breezes gusting under the oval roof of the Centre Court. He began with a double-fault on the first point of the first game, losing his serve with a weak forehand return. Courier, showing no such nerves, produced two aces in his first service game. Ten minutes later, with the American serving at 2-1 and 0-30, the players were off and the covers were on again.

When they returned, an hour and 10 minutes later, Henman quickly completed the break-back and then held his own serve to love. But Courier was not about to concede the initiative, and broke for the second time in the seventh game, establishing a lead which Henman was unable to threaten as his opponent served out to love to take the first set 6-4 after 34 minutes of play.

Unable to exploit his assets up to that point, Henman opened the second set by briefly finding his serve-and-volley touch. His first two service games proved that, if he could get a secure handle on his most effective tactic, Courier had little hope of winning the match. But his game was still plagued by inconsistency, as evidenced by two consecutive double- faults in the third game of the set. Not until the 16th game of the match did he give the first real indication of his Top 10 status, when he got himself to 0-40 on Courier's serve with a brilliant backhand down the line and a superb high angled backhand volley. But all three set points were allowed to dribble away.

In the 12th game, with Courier serving to stay in the set at 5-6, Henman's body language suddenly became more positive. He floated a backhand return that Courier netted for 0-15, he moved around the baseline to Courier's second serve and contrived a cunning return for 0-30, and at 30-40 he fired in a series of groundstrokes of such teasing length that he was able to come in and take the set with a finely angled volley.

After that concentrated display of dominance, Henman began the third set with another double-fault but recovered to hold his serve with a marvellous scrambled recovery at deuce. Once more, though, he was failing to find accuracy with his first serve, and in the seventh game Courier ventured to the net for the first time, on his opponent's serve. Henman took the cue, and tried to follow up a return of serve by approaching the net in the subsequent game. Courier's delight as he passed the stranded Englishman represented his first display of emotion in the match, and he repeated it in his next service game when Henman again tried to establish a presence at the net.

Serving once again at 5-6 down, Courier found himself confronted by a Henman who had once more convinced himself that boldness would win the day. Three times Henman followed his returns into the net, and three times he prevailed with deep and carefully guided volleys. At 15-40, Courier tried to change the rhythm and came to the net to steer Henman's return wide of the Englishman's forehand - and wide of the sideline, according to the line judge. Courier disagreed, and placed a spare ball on the line to demonstrate to their chair umpire exactly where he believed the ball had landed, touching the chalk. But Henman had taken the set 7-5 and was now leading the match.

Courier walked back to receive Henman's serve for the first game of the fourth set still muttering and grumbling at the world in general, but he sprang back into action in the second game, producing a pair of excellent stop-volleys that helped him hold his serve to love. Encouraged by his success, he charged forward again in Henman's next service game, only to find himself beaten by his opponent's finest stroke of the match so far, a backhand topspin lob which landed a foot inside the line.

His own mis-hit lob and a distracting flutter of pigeons under the eaves of the Centre Court brought impatient gestures from Courier that were perhaps illustrations not so much of his own disquiet as of his desire to interrupt such rhythms as the game had established. Henman's serve had shown little sign of approaching anything like real efficiency, but Courier was going to need something more than just his repertoire of groundstrokes if he was going to get back into the match, and that something would probably have to entail inducing a crisis of confidence in his opponent.

In the sixth game he pursued his net policy but found needed a couple of poor backhands by Henman to stay level at 3-3. A delicious angled volley and two clean aces - one disputed by Courier, with the accompaniment of extravagant facial gestures - took Henman to 4-3 in the fourth set, and a carefully developed sequence of groundstrokes brought him the first point of Courier's next service game, suggesting a tactical dimension that he had not previously explored. But two points later the umbrellas went up and the players fled once more.