Tim Henman insisted that he will be back at Wimbledon in 2008 for a 15th All England Club campaign despite a heartbreaking five-set loss to Spain's Feliciano Lopez.
LONDON: Tim Henman insisted that he will be back at Wimbledon in 2008 for a 15th All England Club campaign despite a heartbreaking five-set loss to Spain's Feliciano Lopez.
The 32-year-old went down to a 7-6 (7/3), 7-6 (7/5), 3-6, 2-6, 6-1 second round defeat against the left-hander but the four-time semi-finalist, who made his debut here back in 1994, said he has no plans to quit.
"I'll be back next year, absolutely," said Henman, who knows that with his ranking set to slump from its current 74 he faces a huge task to put his career back on track after his third successive second round defeat here.
"I'm not going to play forever, but I'm passionate about what I do. I love what I do and I want to make the most of it."
"The second round is not something I'm proud of. But I look at my first round performance, a five-set won over Carlos Moya, and I'm proud of the way I played there."
"I want to try and build on it and see what happens in the rest of the year."
Lopez goes on to face French wildcard Jo-Wilfried Tsonga for a place in the last 16 while all British interest in the singles at this year's Wimbledon has now ended after just four days.
It was Henman's second successive five-setter at Wimbledon having been pushed all the way by former French Open winner Moya over four hours in the first round.
"Being two sets down you are never in a great position but I felt like my game was there," said Henman, who was carrying his country's hopes again in the absence of national number one Andy Murray.
"I believed that he couldn't keep playing like that. I believed I could turn it around. But the early part of the fifth he hit a couple of good shots at the right time. That made life difficult."
Lopez, who had only won one match on the tour since March coming into Wimbledon, seized control of the tie with two confident tie-breaks to open a two-set lead.
Henman was broken in the first game of the third set but from 0-2 down he battled back to 5-2 before going on to cut the deficit.
Henman broke to lead 2-1 in the fourth set and having been on the receiving end of Lopez's fist-clenching bravado in the first two sets, he repaid the favour with his own fighting gesture aimed directly at the Spaniard.
Buoyed by having the upper-hand over an increasingly dispirited Lopez, Henman broke again in the fifth game on the way to leveling the tie.
Lopez sought the sanctuary of the men's rest room at the changeover and the break worked in his favour as he came out with all guns firing in the final set sprinting into a 3-0 lead against a visibly tiring Henman.
That became 5-1 with another break and the match was sealed with a precision Lopez backhand.
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