Tim Henman: Life After Tennis

08 June 2009

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Tim Henman led British tennis for so many years, making four Wimbledon semi-finals, as the whole country got behind him every year to cheer him on as Wimbledon fever gripped the UK.

After nearly a two year break from the game since his retirement Henman has teamed up with Robinsons and singer Alesha Dixon to encourage youngers all over the country to pick up their rackets and take up tennis.

I caught up with him to talk about this new scheme, his career, returning to Centre Court and what lies ahead for the former world number four.

- You have been working with Robinsons and Alesha Dixon on the run up to Wimbledon can you tell me about it?

Yeah Robinsons supported throughout my entire career and they’ve been involved at Wimbledon forever and we have always done different initiatives each year before the tournament.

This year we thought that we would do something slightly different and work with the queue, people are always queuing and it has become tradition on it’s own, and so Robinsons have set up their own court and I had to train a celebrity who is going to play against people in the queue so for the last couple of week s I’ve been training Alesha Dixon.

- You have bee coaching Alesha she sings, dances, climbs mountains please tell us she was rubbish.

Well she had never played tennis before so she was slightly up against it and because of all those things she is very athletic which definitely made my job much easier. But for just two weeks of tennis she has done really well.

- The pair of you are about to set off around the country to encourage people to play tennis so what do you hope the tour will achieve?

We were in Coventry and Birmingham for the first day and yesterday we were in Nottingham and then Leicester we have been to different clubs and played against kids and then got some practice to Alesha as well, so it’s been good fun.  I think really the objective is to encourage kids and families to play tennis because it is a great game and a really healthy, active lifestyle. 

And I think if you get kids playing at a young age and they enjoy what they are doing then there’s a better chance of them wanting to play more in the future and always, you know what it’s like around Wimbledon there’s always this massive excitement and the courts are always packed in parks and clubs but then eight weeks later the rackets go away until net year, and we are just trying to encourage people to enjoy it and have some fun and hopefully they will want to keep playing.

- Do you think that tennis not being played in many schools is part of the problem?

Yeah I think it need to be encouraged and schools is a big area that can be targeted and for a sport like tennis you want to make it as accessible as possible so that kids can play and that’s where we want it to be that they can just play in the park or in the garden.

- And how did you get into the game in the first place?

My way into the game was through my family really, my parents played and I have two older brothers and we were all sports made tennis being one of the games that we played, for whatever reason from a very young age I just loved it and if you would have asked me at five or six years old what I was going to be I would have said I was going to be a tennis player., I didn’t know if I was going to be any good but I was going to give it a try.

- You were back at Wimbledon to play under the new roof so how was that and what do you think of the addition to centre court?

It was fantastic. I stopped playing professionally in September 2007 and I hadn’t played for about seventeen months and then I was asked to play in this. It was so much fun to get back on centre court but to play in such a relaxed atmosphere it felt really different, the roof in itself is just amazing and it’s going to be a brilliant addition as the rain delays for the players, viewer, media and fans has always been such a nightmare it will be such an asset for the tournament.

- You retired a couple of years ago so do you miss it? And what have you been up to in that time?

I really don’t miss it at all, and I think that that was emphasised by the fact that I haven’t played for so long, but my family is the best bit, I have three children, and it’s great to be able to spend time with them. But it’s also the freedom of no practice, no training, no travel, no tournaments and suddenly you can have some proper holidays, I’ve been skiing which I was never really allowed to do before in case I broke my leg, yeah just to be at home and chill our really.