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Wimbledon '97: British tennis falls back to earth

Clare Garner
Thursday 03 July 1997 23:02 BST
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The sun set on Britain's hopes of a home-grown finalist at Wimbledon this year at 5.44pm yesterday.

The fact that the "Greg v Tim" T-shirts had sold out to expectant spectators that morning said it all. The fans had been counting their Brits before they were hatched.

Henmania was history - and as the crestfallen crowd filed out of the stadium they took refuge in another national obsession - the weather.

While Greg Rusedski, who lost 4-6, 6-4, 4-6, 3-6 to the unseeded Frenchman Cedric Pioline, could have been demoralised by the poor turn- out of fans for his match, Henman could have no such grievance. For everyone was well aware that Michael Stich, the German former champion who has announced his retirement, had nothing to lose and Henman, who would have been the first Briton in the semis since 1973, had everything to play for.

Before the match Stich had said that, while one could always be certain that in football the German would pull through when it came to the crunch, the same could not be said of tennis. But yesterday it never came to the crunch. Any parallel with the highly charged Euro 96 shoot-out was redundant. Rather, it seemed that Stich had a clear passage through.

He greeted the final score 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 by chucking his towels to the crowd. The Union flag wavers were the first to reach out and grab them.

The British were indeed a fickle bunch yesterday. In the morning Rusedski was championed as their own but once he lost the fans were quick to disown him. As one steward remarked: "If he had won he'd have been British; now that he's been knocked out he isn't British any more."

When Rusedski walked on to the court at 11.03am only a third of the 11,500 seats were occupied. An hour later the court was only half full. The reasons given were various. A spokesman for the All England Tennis Club said: "We like the place to be humming but people have to make their own arrangements and we can't influence people to get here."

Boris Becker, three times the Wimbledon champion, will not be returning to the championships. The German was beaten 6-1, 6-7, 6-1, 6-4 by Pete Sampras in the quarter-finals yesterday and announced it was his last match at the All England Club.

"That's it for me," he said. "I think it's a good moment for me to go. I just don't feel I have what it takes to win a Grand Slam any more."

Leading article, page 19

Becker bows out, pages 30, 32

Match reports, page 32

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