Timothy Henry Henman (born 6 September 1974) is a British former professional tennis player. He was ranked world No. 4 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) during the early 2000s. Henman won 15 career ATP Tour titles (eleven in singles and four in doubles), including a Masters event at the 2003 Paris Masters. A serve-and-volley player, he was the first British man to reach the singles semifinals of Wimbledon since Roger Taylor in the 1970s. Henman reached six major semifinals, and earned a 40–14 win-loss record with the Great Britain Davis Cup team.
Henman started playing tennis before the age of three, and began systematic training in the Slater Squad at eleven. After suffering a serious injury, he began touring internationally as a junior with some success. He rose quickly up the ATP rankings, and in 1996 reached the quarterfinals of Wimbledon. For most of his career, Henman was considered a grass court specialist, reaching four Wimbledon semifinals between 1998 and 2002. He also achieved considerable success on hard courts early in his career. He became comfortable on clay only later in his career, when in 2004 he reached the semifinals of the French Open. Henman retired from professional tennis in late 2007, but remained active on the ATP Champions Tour (a tour for former professional tennis players).
Early life Henman was born in Oxford, Oxfordshire, as the youngest of a family of three boys. Henman's father Anthony, a solicitor, was accomplished at various sports, including tennis, hockey and squash. His mother Jane, a dress designer, played Junior Wimbledon and introduced Tim and his elder brothers, Michael and Richard, to tennis as soon as they could walk on the family's grass tennis court. His great-grandfather played at Wimbledon. His maternal grandfather, Henry Billington, played at Wimbledon between 1948 and 1951, and he represented Britain in the Davis Cup in 1948, 1950 and 1951.
In 1901 his maternal great-grandmother, Ellen Stanwell-Brown, was reputedly the first woman to serve overarm at Wimbledon. His maternal grandmother, Susan Billington, appeared regularly at Wimbledon in the 1950s, playing mixed doubles on Centre Court with her husband Henry, reaching the third round of the ladies' doubles in 1951, 1955 and 1956.
Henman grew up in Weston-on-the-Green, Oxfordshire, a village between Oxford and Bicester with a population of around 500. At home, the family had a grass tennis court in their back garden. Henman began playing tennis before the age of three with a shortened squash racket. At this stage, he was already teaching himself how to serve and volley. At an early stage in his life, Henman decided if he did not succeed in tennis, he would become a golfer instead.
Henman attended the Longbridge School for boys between the ages of five and seven, and was enrolled in the private Dragon School in Oxford from seven to 11. He excelled in all sports but was always best at tennis. But Henman was small for his age, a factor which would bode against him in the future. In 1985, he was appointed the school's captain of tennis and led the school's tennis team to win 21 out of 27 matches. He remains to this day the only pupil who has won both the school's junior and senior tennis tournaments in the same year. From the age of eight until his introduction to the Slater Squad, Henman received coaching from the David Lloyd Tennis Centre, where he was given personal lessons by former professional player Onny Parun from New Zealand. In retrospect, Parun stated that Henman's greatest strength "had always been his head." David Lloyd noticed the same mental toughness and was impressed.
He left the Dragon School after he attained a scholarship for Reed's School in Cobham, Surrey. Henman received the scholarship after a physical test: to run until you dropped. Henman, along with Marc Moreso and David Loosemore, did not drop, and was given a scholarship. At this point in his life, Lloyd persuaded Henman's parents to allow him to pursue a tennis career. In retrospect, Lloyd notes, Henman's parents understood what many don't: "you can always go back to higher education at 22 or 23 but that that is far too late to start a serious tennis career."
Henman was picked up by the Slater Squad, a group funded by financier Jim Slater, at the age of 11. The main goal of the Slater Squad was to pick and coach young players from the ages of nine or ten, instead of 11 and 12 as the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) did. The original intake for the squad was eight players between the ages of eight and 11. In addition to Tim, the squad consisted of Jamie Delgado, Gary Le Pla, Paul Jessop, James Bailey, Adrian Blackman, James Davidson and Marc Moreso. In the squad, Henman worked on tennis three hours a day: two hours playing tennis and receiving advice from Donald Watt, and the last hour on gymnastics and learning about the game. In contrast to popular belief, Henman was not considered the best of the bunch, and Sue Barker, the British 1976 French Open Women's champion, judged that there was "nothing particularly special in his game in those days". She said, however, that while Henman did not have the natural skills of a tennis player, he was "a hard worker". None of his fellow players in the Slater Squad saw Henman as a potential British number one, with most believing Marc Moreso to be the group's brightest hope. Not long after becoming a member of the Slater Squad, Henman was diagnosed with osteochondritis, a bone disease. He was unable to play tennis for six months, and it was two years before he could return to tournaments. Luckily for Henman, Slater kept funding him while he was recuperating, because of insistence from Lloyd who believed in Henman's tennis abilities.
At Reed's School he passed ten GCSE exams, but failed chemistry. Outside of school, he worked in Anji's emporium in order to save money for a new racquet. As Henman notes in retrospect, "I passed the others with a few As, a few Bs and a few Cs. It was nothing dazzling by any means, but I got by." At the age of 16, Henman told his mother that it was impossible for him to retain his good grades while keeping up in the tennis world. In 1990 he dropped out of school altogether and focused on becoming a singles player, though Lloyd and the leadership of the Slater Squad had confidence in him as a doubles player, not singles. On the statistics that were available to them, Henman had managed to win five doubles tournaments but only two singles tournaments. But Henman disagreed with the Slater Squad leadership and began playing for the LTA in 1991. At the age of 17, Henman toured South America for eight weeks.
Personal life On 11 December 1999, Henman married his longtime girlfriend, TV producer Lucy Heald, in Hampshire. They have three daughters, Rose Elizabeth (born 19 October 2002), Olivia Susan (born 15 December 2004), and Grace (born 14 September 2007). Having lived in Barnes, southwest London, the family moved in 2003 to a Grade II listed property in Aston Tirrold, south Oxfordshire. Henman occasionally smoked cigarettes during his tennis career. He is a supporter of Oxford United.
His father died on 3 May 2024 from blood cancer.
Tennis career
Junior tour Henman had an inauspicious first tour year in 1991. He won the first round in the New South Wales Championship against Andrew Turner, 6–1, 6–3, but lost in the second round to Corrado Borroni 5–7, 1–6. He was defeated by Australian Michael Hill in the first round of the 1991 Australian Open junior class, 7–5, 3–6, 5–7. At the National the same year, Henman reached the third round, but was defeated 6–1, 6–2 by Andrew Richardson. His performance in doubles matches was markedly better. Henman reached the quarter-finals in the New South Wales Championship with Richardson, and won the Midland Bank Junior Championship in doubles with Jamie Delgado, an associate from the Slater Squad days.
1992 began well, with Henman reaching the finals in Nottingham after defeating Delgado in straight sets in the semi-final. But Henman was defeated in the final by top-seed Mark Schofield, and in the junior French Open by Björn Jacob in three sets, 6–7, 6–1, 9–7. He was defeated in the first round of the Wimbledon junior by Mexican clay specialist Enrique Abaroa in straight sets; 6–2, 6–1. However, things improved dramatically from then on, and in the National Junior Championships he reached the semi-finals without dropping a single set. In the semi-finals Henman met Schofield, and defeated him in four sets; 2–6, 6–3, 7–6, 6–2. Henman met Nick Baglin in the final, and won the match 3–6, 7–5, 6–4, 6–4. In 1992 he turned 18, and Henman began his tennis career in the senior satellite tournaments.
Professional career
1993–1995: Early years From July 1992 to July 1993, Henman grew six inches to six feet one, and went from seven stones to nine stones in weight. This would prove important for his career, as he acknowledged: "As a junior I had pretty good technique. Now I've got the strength and reach, and on the serve that has helped tremendously." Henman was ranked 774th in the world at the beginning of 1993, but by July he had come close to the top 600. In July, Henman received a wildcard to participate in the ATP Challenger tournament in Bristol, England. In the first round, he defeated Colombian Miguel Tobón, ranked 257th, in straight sets, 6–0, 6–3. In the second round he met the Frenchman Éric Winogradsky and defeated him also in straight sets, 7–6, 6–3. Henman was defeated in the quarter-final by British player Chris Bailey, 6–2, 6–1. By November Henman's rank had increased to 415th. Henman's next tournament was the Volkswagen National Championships in Telford, England; he reached the quarter-final but lost to top-ranked British male player Jeremy Bates, 7–5, 7–6. As 1993 drew to a close, Henman played one last tournament in Israel, which he won.
He started the 1994 season with the four-legged Indian satellite circuit; there he won 18 singles matches in a row. Henman was fairly successful at the British Satellite Masters in Croydon, and by the end of the tournament he was ranked 222nd in the world. Encouraged by his success in the satellite circuit, Henman tried his luck at the ATP tour. Henman travelled to the Far East with Bates, and qualified for his first ATP tournament in April, at the Japan Tennis Championship. In his first round he defeated Kelly Jones, 6–2, 6–3, in the second round he defeated Darren Cahill, 6–2, 7–5 and in the third round Henman was defeated by Pete Sampras, 6–1, 6–2. From this performance Henman increased his ranking to 184th. His success in the Japan Open was followed by a failure to qualify at the Hong Kong Open. Because of this failure, he ended the Far East tour by entering a number of satellite tournaments. Henman entered the Nagoya Open, and defeated eighth seed Eyal Ran in the first round, but lost in the second round to Gouichi Motomura. At the Manila Open, another satellite tournament, Henman reached the final but was defeated by fifth seed Michael Tebbutt, 2–6, 2–6.