OLYMPIC TENNIS TOURNAMENT

August 15, 2004

Tim Henman

THE MODERATOR: First question for Tim.

TIM HENMAN: It certainly was difficult conditions, but, you know, as I said straight away afterwards, you know, it's the same for both of us. It doesn't make playing easy, but it's going to be a battle of who handles it best. And, you know, he certainly did that. I felt like I got off to a good start, obviously breaking him in the first game. But for the next four games, he was just -- I don't think he made an unforced error and hitting a lot of winners. So that's certainly -- that puts me in a difficult situation. So, you know, he did play some very good tennis tonight. You know, I don't think we should be surprised by that. You know, he's a world-class player. He's been inside the Top 10 before. He's too good for me tonight.

TIM HENMAN: Yeah, I didn't play great. But as I said, you know, there's aspects that I felt I could have done better, but certainly at times wasn't allowed to play as well as I would like. You know, the quality of his serving and consistently from the baseline in those conditions, was very, very good.

TIM HENMAN: Yeah, it's absolutely fine. It was definitely a struggle for a couple of weeks in the States, and I do feel that, you know, I've lost a little bit of rhythm in my game. That's something I need to pick up again. I need to, you know, play some more matches and get the balance right of, you know, being aggressive and being consistent. And, you know, that's going to come from a lot of hard work on the practice court.

TIM HENMAN: No, no. In the short term, you know, I played the last two tournaments in the States and, you know, I wasn't -- I certainly didn't feel particularly comfortable on the court with the way that my back was. But, you know, I'm healthy now and I need to obviously regroup and, you know, keep working hard. I wouldn't say that, you know, I played great the last couple of weeks. But, you know, I've got plenty of -- had plenty of good matches and tournaments this year. So I'm sure it can, in the short term, turn around pretty quickly.

TIM HENMAN: No, no.

TIM HENMAN: Uhm... that's an interesting way of looking at it. Not much more than five.

TIM HENMAN: Yeah, it's something that I've got to give it some thought. I'd like to stay around and watch, you know, a lot of the other events. And I was watching in the village last night the diving when we got, you know, our first medal in. I'd certainly like to go and watch a lot of the other sports. On the other hand, I want to, you know, get on the practice court and put the work in and, you know, start feeling better about my game because we're -- in terms of an Olympic sport, we're unusual that we've got another competition so soon after, and, you know, that being the US Open, I've got to make sure that I'm playing better.

TIM HENMAN: No (smiling).

TIM HENMAN: I'm trying to look ahead to tomorrow to know what I'm doing. Now you're asking me to look four years ahead (smiling).

TIM HENMAN: Might not be. Might be eight of us.

TIM HENMAN: Might be, yeah. Who knows? Doesn't take long to turn around. You only need -- you know, in '95, I was nowhere to be seen. In '96 I was silver medalist. So let's hope that it's a better situation in Beijing because I think it is disappointing that, you know, I'm the only one that's part of the Great Britain team in tennis.

TIM HENMAN: You know, playing in the Olympics, I know the importance of winning a medal because I've won one. So, you know, it's certainly not the way that you approach it in a straight knock-out tournament. But it's something that I'm mentally proud of, that I've won an Olympic medal, and I'm disappointed that I couldn't add to it this event.