Tennis: Henman humbles Tillstrom to stay on course for Hanover

TIM HENMAN kept his dream of reaching the season's finale alive by crushing the Swede Mikael Tillstrom 6-3, 6-1 to move into the second round of the Stockholm Open last night.

The British No 1 is battling it out with his fellow countryman and Paris Open champion, Greg Rusedski, and the Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov for the last two places in the eight-man field for the ATP Tour World Championship in Hanover in a fortnight.

Henman, seeded third in the Swedish event, began smartly with a break in the second game for a 2-0 lead, thanks to a double-fault from Tillstrom.

He made it 3-0, but then faced two break points in the fifth game, saving the first with an ace but floating a backhand long on the second as his lead dropped to 3-2. However, he got his second break for 5-3 and served out the next game to take the first set in 29 minutes.

Tillstrom's form faded at the start of the second and he lost the opening game after saving one of three break points.

Henman hammered over two aces in the second game to confirm his domination and the Briton's shots began to tell on Tillstrom who lost his serve again in the fifth game following a perfect Henman pass.

Henman broke for a third time to end the match with a backhand winner and now faces the South African Wayne Ferreira, who defeated German Jens Knipschild 6-4, 6-2, in the second round.

The Japanese qualifier Takao Suzuki defeated the eighth-seeded Thomas Enqvist 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 to join Henman in the second round.

Suzuki, who swept past three more experienced players in the qualification round, broke Enqvist, a double Stockholm Open winner, for 5-4 in the deciding set and then successfully served for the match.

The win was only his second in an ATP tournament, the first coming in the Japan Open when he defeated the Swedish Davis Cup player Nicklas Kulti, one of his victims in the qualifiers here.

Karol Kucera, the Slovak ranked seventh in the world, has secured his place in the World Championship because of withdrawals by Richard Krajicek, of the Netherlands, and Patrick Rafter of Australia.

It was confirmed yesterday that Kucera, who has two wins this year and was a finalist in Vienna three weeks ago, has qualified for the first time for the $3.5m (pounds 2.1m) event, which takes place from 24 to 29 November.

The No 4 seed, Byron Black of Zimbabwe, defeated Martin Damm, of the Czech Republic, in straight sets in the Kremlin Cup in Moscow yesterday.