Henman recaptures aggression in time for switch to grass

Back home on grass after an encouraging adventure on the French Open clay, Tim Henman is ready to hone his game for another attack on Wimbledon. The British No 1 will not have to practise bowing to the Royal Box this year, but there is scope for improving his game after his forced hibernation at the start of the year when recovering from a shoulder surgery.

"I'm probably 20 wins behind or something," said Henman, who played impressively for an hour before his game was expertly filleted by the Spanish third seed, Juan Carlos Ferrero, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 6-2, in the third round here on Saturday.

"There has been a lot of focus on my serve in the last 12 months, and I probably got a little bit conservative with my first serve, looking for consistency. I think now I'm getting the aggressive nature of the first serve back. I think it's improved a lot in the last month. I think my second serve is the big positive from the last 12 months. The work I was putting in has made it a lot more consistent and also more aggressive."

Henman's slice backhand was the stroke that impressed Ferrero most on Saturday. "It's an effective shot against these guys," Henman said. "They love the ball up in the hitting zone or a little bit higher. That's where their extreme grips and their techniques are so strong for clay courts. When the ball is so low, they can't get underneath it."

Also noticeable was Henman's staying power from the back of the court. "It's partly to do with changing the string. I've always used gut, but in Rome I started messing about with the synthetic string that all the clay court players use to play with more spin. I'm now using a blend with gut on the crosses and synthetic string on the mains. It gives me the option to be more aggressive but still play with more control. I experimented with it for a couple of weeks on the clay, and it's worked out pretty well. On grass, you probably play a lot flatter than you do spin-wise on clay, and gut might be still the way forward for me."

Henman is due to be joined in London today by his coach, the American Larry Stefanki, to prepare for next week's Stella Artois Championships at Queen's Club, where he has lost to Lleyton Hewitt in the last two finals. Hewitt, who also defeated Henman in the Wimbledon semi-finals last year, was another third-round loser at Roland Garros on Saturday, after leading Tommy Robredo, of Spain, by two sets to love and 3-0 in the fifth. "I'm sure I'll get over it pretty soon and bounce back," the world No 1 said.