WHAT WILL HENMAN'S LEGACY BE WORTH?

Tim Henman is preparing to play his last competitive matches next week with the British nation still apparently split on the strength of the legacy the former world number four and perennial Wimbledon nearly-man will leave.

Henman's popularity has never been in question, and the man who lent his name to the hill outside the All England Club's Court One will be cheered when he walks off that same court for the final time.

It was not just the Henmaniac housewives who clasped him to their respective bosoms. The whole of the beleaguered British tennis establishment hitched a ride on the publicity afforded the best home-grown player since Fred Perry.

Yet for all his success in annexing Fleet Street's back pages for the best part of two weeks every year, Henman's failure to cross the line and become a Grand Slam champion drew criticism.

There are those who say that a record which boasts six career Grand Slam semi-finals, 11 main tour titles and a more or less permanent place in the world's top 10 in his prime is not that of an under-achiever.

Others say such an attitude is simply pandering the irritating British mentality for coveting its underdogs and nearly men at the expense of the rare few who do manage to scale the summits of their sports.

It didn't help that Henman fitted so snugly into the All England Club stereotype of a privileged public schoolboy at a time when the sport was struggling to broaden its traditional boundaries.

Those Home Counties housewives roared him on while others yearned for a British tennis player with a personality to match the expletive-laden Yanks or the precocious flame-haired Germans.

Every time his Wimbledon challenge came to an end, Henman's biggest critics were quick to insist he simply lacked the nerve or the hunger to reach that elusive Grand Slam final.

Yet the facts bear out Henman's brilliance and speak much louder than those critics who appeared determined to jump on the anti-Tim bandwagon for spurious reasons seemingly to do with class.

He was, of course, the best British player since Perry. And what the Lawn Tennis Association would do for another so-called 'loser' who could rival Andy Murray and reach six Grand Slam semi-finals before his career is out.

But it is against the global greats that Henman's career should be judged. Not perhaps the multiple Grand Slam winners who belong in a pantheon of their own, but against those whose fleeting successes were no match for his consistency.

To call Henman a 'loser' is patently rubbish. He might have failed to win a Slam, but it may be some small consolation to head into retirement being labelled as the best player never to win one.