Tennis: Henman given a hard time by Weal

Tim Henman's step from the world circuit back into domestic competition suffered a surprising stumble in his opening match of the Guardian Direct British National Championships at Telford yesterday.

The defending champion dropped the second set and was within a point of going a break of serve down in the third set before coming through 6-4, 5-7, 6-1 against his former doubles partner Nick Weal.

Weal, ranked 14 in Britain and only 594 in the world, had an inspired spell at the end of the second set, in which he saved five match points on his serve and then broke Henman in the following game.

The champion helped him with a double fault to go break point down and then delivered a second serve which gave Weal the chance to make a winning backhand return.

Mostly, however, Henman played reasonably well but found Weal in outstanding form with big first serves and heavy forehands.

"Really the focus should be on his performance and how well he played," Henman said. "It's not the best I have played but I upped my level in the third set. It was a good match.

"There is a gap in the rankings for everyone to see. But there are signs there are guys pushing up the rankings to fill that gap," Henman, the world No 17, added.

Weal, 24, from Hampshire: "I am a little disappointed. I had a sniff there and hit an off-balance forehand. I'm not saying I would have won, but I would have been in the driving seat, if I had taken that."

The defending women's champion, Julie Pullin, had an even bumpier ride. The fifth seed from Sussex fell away disappointingly in the second set of a 7-6, 6-2 loss to Lizzie Jelfs.

Jelfs, who had been 5-4 down in the final set to Warwickshire's Leyla Ogan late the night before, seemed to have been match-hardened by that crisis and earned herself a quarter-final with the third seed Lorna Woodroffe.

l Andre Agassi, now ranked a lowly 139 in the world, took a small step in his quest to regain his world-class stature with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Michael Tebbutt, of Australia, in the opening round of the USTA Men's Challenger tournament in Las Vegas on Tuesday night.