Settling out of court

NO-ONE seems to notice 33-year-old Tim Henman as he strides through the café area of the Riverside Health and Racquets Club in Chiswick, West London (very grand, very polished, very exclusive). Outside in the sunshine, various potential tennis prodigies are slamming balls on to clay courts.

Manicured, coiffured mothers drinking lattes watch them, and yet Henman, surely our most beloved British tennis player, wanders unheeded through their midst. Henman doesn't really blend in. Yes, he is wearing tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt, but he is super-tall and lanky and is, in the middle of all the ladies-who-lunch, a man.

Even though I meet him in his comfort zone – a tennis environment – it's clear the man I talk to is different from the tightly focused player of less than a year ago. He is visibly more relaxed and tells me he has completely shunned his tennis obsession in favour of family life. Since he stopped playing tennis professionally last September, he has also lost weight.

"It's because I don't work out in the way I used to," he says. "I don't have the muscles I used to have."

He is much better looking in the flesh than he ever seemed on television. I used to wince every time he lost his temper slightly on court (he'd look like a truculent little boy who had had his sweets taken away), but in real life he is much more relaxed. That tense, pent-up aggression and forced grimace has relaxed into something far more appealing.

Once we are seated, in a bleached-wood dining room overlooking yet more tennis courts, I tell him that watching him play was one of the most excruciating experiences of my life. All those missed shots, missed opportunities, wasted Wimbledon semi-finals.

"Yeah, well, I don't do that any more," he says, smiling, "and I am enjoying every minute of it. I love being retired. In fact, if I had known I was going to enjoy being unemployed and having this lack of structure maybe I would have gone for it earlier …" he corrects himself hurriedly "… not that I regret anything or would have done anything differently, it's just that I'm having a really good time."

He certainly doesn't need to work. Estimates put his fortune at £6 million, without counting sponsorship deals, meaning he can spend his days now playing golf, drinking wine, being a dad. The contrast with his former life as a professional athlete couldn't be more marked. "I haven't had the time or opportunity to do this before," he says. "You know, the breakfast thing and the nappy thing. I was travelling most of the year and having to be fit and focused all the time."

He did seem immensely focused. He says it has always been that way. "I wanted to be a professional tennis player from the age of five. All my family played," he says. His mother, Jane, was pretty handy with a racquet. Her parents played mixed doubles. His dad, Anthony, is pretty sporty as well.

"By the time I was five I was doing tennis, cricket, football, rugby." My goodness, his parents must be pushy? Henman denies it.

"It was me," he says. "Everyone assumes my parents forced me into playing tennis but that is unfair. I wanted to play. From a young age I knew it was what I enjoyed most. My family just supported me and encouraged my ambitions."

Family is a big deal for Henman. Over the years he has been criticised for coming from a stable, middle-class Home Counties background. "Actually, I just got fed up with all that," he says. "I can't change where I come from and I'm sick of apologising for it.

"Anyway, of course it's middle-class people who come through in tennis. Their parents can afford to get them lessons. What we need in tennis is to identify the talented young regardless of their situation.

"Too many children are not picked up because they are not a member of a well-known club. We need to encourage everyone to give it a go and then be aware of what talent is out there."

What does he think made him Britain's most successful player? "It comes down to the individual. It's not the fault of the Lawn Tennis Association, or the schools, or funding, or anything else, that we don't have top players," he says. "Yes, you have to have encouragement, you have to be spotted and then nurtured, but we have good coaches in this country and a good training system. I did all my training here. When I started out, my dream was to get to Wimbledon. I thought we had the best competition in the world here but no-one to play in it, so I decided I would be that person. What depresses me is that, 22 years on, there's Andy Murray and that's it."

So what is the problem, then? "You have to work hard and be mentally strong. If I'd ever actually, really thought about the 15 million watching me on television, plus those on Centre Court and how much it all meant to them, I would have been paralysed and incapable of playing. What I learned to do is switch off."

Now Henman isn't playing any tennis. "Not a stroke," he says, "and I am loving it. My life has totally changed. I run my charity that supports children – this year we are raising money for children who have cancer through the CLIC Sargent appeal. Also, I'm really happy to be at home with the kids when they get back from school, that type of thing."

He and his wife Lucy Heald married in 1999 and have three daughters, Rosie, five, Olivia, three, and Grace, who is nearly a year old. "I think their life has changed a bit," he says, smiling. "There are so many things I have done with them for the first time. We can take family holidays when we want to, rather than it all revolving round my tournament schedules. Also, I can relax on holidays. I never used to. I was always thinking about the next tournament or worrying about being fit. This year we even went skiing."

He's also discovered the joys of wine. "I've always known the joys of wine," he says. "But one of the biggest problems for a tennis player is the issue of dehydration, so if I was playing in something like the Australian Open I just couldn't even have a glass. Now I think, 'One glass, one bottle, what's the difference?'"

He is building up a wine cellar and trying to learn more about it. He is also, he says, playing a lot of golf. "I'm a three handicap now," he reveals.

In a case of role-reversal, his wife will be going back to work as a TV director. "She has always worked," Henman says, "but she's had three children in five years so she hasn't been able to do that much." He says he is happy to stay at home and play house husband. "As much as I think I will be involved in tennis again, I don't think I'll do anything like that for the next four or five years." Doesn't he miss it? "Only the camaraderie of the locker room," he says.

He doesn't want his children to play tennis. "I really don't," he says. "I don't encourage them and I'd rather they didn't." Why not? "Because, for a start, I'm not sure if their surname would be a help or a hindrance and also because it's a tough life. I did it non-stop from the age of five, but I was a very focused child. I'd much rather my girls did something else, like eventing, maybe. That's what their mother does."

For now, Henman's involvement in the sport is limited to the Wimbledon commentary box. He hopes his presence there this year will raise awareness of the game.

"Commentating for the BBC is great. I'm working with Sue Barker. She used to pick me up and take me to training when I was younger, so I feel very relaxed with her. I'm also in the box with John McEnroe."

Will he be as critical as McEnroe? "I don't think of it as criticism, I think of it as John's honest opinion. When I was playing at the top level I knew people had an opinion on me, but Lucy and I never read anything."

He might have dedicated his life to reaching Centre Court, but today life on the sidelines suits Tim Henman perfectly.