Hinman A Hit With Brits
The flag-waving, foot-stomping rabble took over Centre Court from the blue-blazered swells on People’s Sunday II at Wimbledon and turned the joint into a soccer-style circus for beloved Brit Tim Henman.
The fans’ full-throated roars and chants carried Henman from the brink of defeat to a rousing four-hour, 6-7 (9-7), 6-3, 6-2, 4-6, 14-12 triumph over Paul Haarhuis that will go down as one of the most dramatic in Wimbledon history, even if it only put Henman into the fourth round against defending champion Richard Krajicek.
It was a match that defined a rare day and overshadowed the ouster of six women seeds, including the only former champion in the draw, Conchita Martinez, and Olympic gold medalist Lindsay Davenport.
The rain that wrecked the opening-week schedule gave way to chilly but dry weather that allowed the tournament to catch up on most of the postponed matches with play on the middle Sunday for only the second time. Like People’s Sunday in 1991, Centre Court was filled with thousands of fans who queued up through the night to get seats that usually go only to the privileged.
“From the word go, it was something I’d never experienced before,” Henman said of the wildly screaming fans. “The noise was just a totally different level.”
Haarhuis held at match at 5-4 but double-faulted twice, each time the crowd parting with protocol and cheering those mistakes. Haarhuis refused to criticize the crowd, however, saying he’d faced more of a “chilling experience” against Jimmy Connors in the 1991 U.S. Open quarterfinals.
The difference between Sunday’s mob and the typically staid spectators, one steward commented, is “these people know something about tennis.” They showed it not just in their patriotic cheers for Henman, who rallied from a break down at 3-5 in the fifth set, but in the warm way they responded to beleaguered Monica Seles.
No. 1 Martina Hingis virtually proclaimed the end of the Steffi Graf era after moving easily into the fourth round, and fellow 16-year-old Anna Kournikova won cheers by knocking off No. 7 Anke Huber 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.
xxxx Wimbledon at a glance WIMBLEDON, England A brief look at what happened Sunday at the Wimbledon championships: Weather - Cloudy with cool temperatures. High temperature was 64 degrees. Attendance - 31,204. The attendance the only other time they played on middle Sunday in 1991 was 24,894. Results Men’s second-round winners - No. 3 Yevgeny Kafelnikov, No. 9 Marcelo Rios, No. 12 Patrick Rafter. Men’s third-round winners - No. 4 Richard Krajicek, No. 14 Tim Henman. Women’s second-round winners - No. 2 Monica Seles, No. 3 Jana Novotna, No. 8 Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, No. 9 Mary Pierce, No. 11 Mary Joe Fernandez. Women’s third-round winners - No. 1 Martina Hingis, No. 4 Iva Majoli, No. 12 Irina Spirlea. Upsets Second-round women’s matches - Denisa Chladkova over No. 5 Lindsay Davenport, Patricia HyBoulais over No. 6 Amanda Coetzer, Naoka Kijimuta over No. 16 Barbara Paulus. Third-round women’s matches - Anna Kournikova over No. 7 Anke Huber, Helena Sukova over No. 10 Conchita Martinez, Sabine Appelmans over No. 14 Brenda Schultz-McCarthy. Third-round men’s matches - Cedric Pioline over No. 15 Wayne Ferreira. Stat of the Day - Henman won 71 percent of the points when his serve was in play, including 82 percent when his first serve was good. Quote of the Day - “It gives you an amazing sort of buzz. I wonder whether I’ll ever experience that again, but I’m glad that I have.” Tim Henman.