Henman labours on return to grass

It is going to take Tim Henman longer to find his feet on grass than it did to discover himself back in the Wimbledon spotlight yesterday. Even the post-match interviews at the Stella Artois Championships here are conducted in a room wall-to-wall with Kipling and his entreaty concerning the two imposters, triumph and disaster.

Less than a fortnight before the British No 1 is due to carry the nation's hopes at the Big W, he was answering the customary questions about the Big If, and responding courteously and positively as always.

Henman is still a contender at the Stella, unlike his Davis Cup team-mates, Greg Rusedski and Martin Lee – and the Brits with wild cards, Arvind Parmar, Jamie Delgado and Alex Bogdanovic – but the 27-year-old from Oxfordshire made an inauspicious start.

Given that Henman, the No 2 seed, was playing his first match on a lawn since the anguish of last year's soggy, three-day Wimbledon semi-final against Goran Ivanisevic, allowances can be made for the lack of verve in his serves and volleys in defeating Neville Godwin, of South Africa, ranked No 111 in the world, 6-4, 7-6.

Godwin, best known for a third round win against Boris Becker at Wimbledon in 1996 when the three-times champion retired because of a wrist injury, had taken Henman to three sets in their two previous matches, both of which were won by the Briton. Yesterday, Godwin exchanged service breaks with Henman in the opening games and created four more break points before Henman took the opening set, breaking in the 10th game.

The first set lasted 42 minutes, and it was another hour before Henman edged into the third round, and the prospect of a first meeting with the American Robby Ginepri, who defeated the Swiss Marc Rosset in three noisy sets on Court No 2.

Henman won the first three games of the second set, and then had three break points for 5-1. Godwin not only saved them, but broke back to 4-3. Even when the South African double-faulted to 5-3, Henman was unable to serve the match out, double-faulting at 0-40 in the ninth game. In the tie-break, Henman was pulled back from 3-1 to 3-3, and won the next three points. Godwin double-faulted on the second match point.

"I've got to find the right balance in all aspects of my game," Henman said, smiling when an analogy with the World Cup team was offered on the lines that winning can be more important than performance at this stage.

Traditionally, a good run in the Stella tends to breed success at Wimbledon, and last year Henman was the runner-up to Lleyton Hewitt. "Some people view Queen's as a warm-up tournament," Henman admitted, "but in a way it's more my home tournament than Wimbledon."

In other matches, Thomas Enqvist, the third seed from Sweden, was eliminated 6-3, 7-5 by Michael Russell, an American ranked 177, while James Blake, the seventh seed, lost to Vince Spadea 6-3, 6-4.