British tennis fails again

Wimbledon sees the back of the last Briton

Tim Henman's exit was a huge disappointment for BBC commentator John Lloyd, as he admits in his daily review from Wimbledon.

With Tim going out it gives a pretty poor reflection on British tennis. Once again he's had to play the main role with Greg Rusedski having a bad Wimbledon. It just shows the complete lack of depth in the men's and women's game in this country.

Henman smashed his racquet in defeat

It's very disappointing for the crowd and the tournament and of course for Tim. It would have been very special if he'd hung on until the last couple of rounds.

I thought that if he could beat Philippoussis he would be able to beat Agassi. It was a 50/50 match going into it, but Philippoussis did incredibly well to come back after that five-setter marathon on Saturday night to come through again.

The first set was a combination of nerves and awesome power from Philippoussis. On his day Philippoussis can overpower anybody. He has so much raw power that he can demolish someone over a period of games. Unfortunately for Tim he managed to sustain that pressure.

Sampras and Agassi

I'd hate to see what Pete Sampras would be like if he was 100%. There's no doubt he's had injury problems, but the rest has obviously helped. He took his game up another level against Jonas Bjorkman.

Back to 100%

He looks like he's ready to go through the pain barrier, but I thought the pain seemed to be easing off. His movement was fabulous and he certainly didn't have any problems with his serve. You'd have to give him 10 out of 10 in every department.

It was almost like it was a day for the top two to start revving up. Agassi was absolutely brilliant as well.

Both players they beat, Bjorkman and David Prinosil, didn't have a lot to hurt them. Neither had big serves to worry Sampras or Agassi. But the top two were both magnificent.

New faces

It's also nice that we've got a new face in Vladimir Voltchkov and we need a few new faces in tennis. He came through the qualifying and has the potential of a semi-final place coming up against Byron Black.

It's good for the sport to have someone that's exciting and he's made a lot of fans at Wimbledon.

You almost always get someone who comes through unexpectedly, but this year we've had three with Alexandra Popp, Voltchkov and Black. Black would never have dreamt of making it to the quarter-finals and it's great that he's remained focussed in spite of everything happening back home in Zimbabwe.

Women's quarter-finals

The women's quarter-finals line up looks very interesting.

Too strong for Hingis?

Jelena Dokic has a huge opportunity to improve on her incredible Wimbledon success last year, when she reached this stage. She's got a chance to go one better against Magui Serna.

I think Venus Williams can beat Martina Hingis. I tipped Hingis at the start of the Championships, but Venus has come through pretty unexpectedly and I like the way she's playing. On most surfaces she can out-power Hingis, although she's yet to prove that on grass. But she may do.

Lisa Raymond is a good grass court player and has been around a while, but I think Serena Williams will have too much raw power for her and that would give us a semi-final confrontation between the two sisters.

I have to go for Lindsay Davenport against Monica Seles. She has got better as the tournament's gone on and although they both came through quite convincingly, I think Davenport has enough grass court savvy to get through to the semi-finals.