Wimbledon begins today, happily restored to Irish terrestrial television by TG4 after an interlude since RTÉ coverage ceased some years ago. In the interim, Irish fans have depended on the BBC's saturation coverage which renders tennis a mainstream discussion topic for a fortnight each year. Beginning at noon, 128 men and 128 women will set out in search of the coveted singles titles. But you wouldn't know it from watching the BBC.
As each year passes, its Wimbledon coverage becomes rather less that of a tennis tournament and rather more a fly-on-the wall documentary about the quest of one man to end a drought dating back to 1936 in the men's event. A proud tradition and rich legacy to the game renders the perennial impotence of British players something of a national embarrassment. Each year as Wimbledon rolls around, Tim Henman is cast as the only potential saviour upon whose frail shoulders the hopes of the nation rest. In the loathsome manner of the British tabloid press he is billed as a hero when he wins and as an inept loser when he doesn't.
For the past decade Irish viewers have wrestled with the question of whether to cheer for Tim or for his opponent. We bristle at the patrician ancestry, Oxford upbringing and clean-cut image that at times render him a parody of the British middle class. We certainly have a natural aversion to the hubristic jingoism that surrounds his every performance. In a near Pavlovian response, many Irish people cheer for Tim's opponents as they cheer England's soccer opponents. I think this is a mistaken reaction.
Henman will turn 31 in September and is now in the autumn of his career. He begins his 12th Wimbledon this week with the knowledge that he has reached the quarter-finals or better in eight of the past nine years. It is an impressively consistent record.
Contrary to the perception that Henman has a yellow streak, he is an outstanding competitor and a gifted player. He is certainly the best volleyer in tennis today, bar none. His slim frame belies a durability that has rarely seen him fade physically in longer matches. Six times a semi-finalist in Grand Slam tournaments and 11 times a winner on the ATP Tour, with career prize money of $11 million, he doesn't easily fit any sensible definition of a loser. But being British, he will forever be defined by his failure to win Wimbledon.
There is little ground for renewed optimism this year. The Federer era is well under way and the Swiss has demolished Tim in their last three meetings, as has Lleyton Hewitt in all eight contests between the pair. Nor would you fancy Henman's chances against the American Andy Roddick, eight years his junior, blessed with a brutal serve that will surely earn him the title one day. Henman's Sisyphean struggle at Wimbledon may be reaching its end.
There has been something of the epic about it, though. Despite living a Truman Show existence for a fortnight each year, Henman conducts himself with dignity, honour and good grace. He has never done less than his best. And his fans on "Henman Hill" - the public viewing area where his matches are relayed on giant screens - are surely difficult to dislike. They are dowdy, frumpy, unobjectionable types living a humdrum, suburban existence. Tim Henman is their David Beckham. He is their hero, the man they would love their son to be or their daughter to have married. It is no accident that Henman advertises detergent and Beckham perfume - doubtless no accident either that his parents are genteel models of polite restraint, unusual in a game filled with driven, obsessive parents.
The whiter-than-white, boy-next-door image is a myth, though. Henman is a competitor through and through. For those eager to analyse, it is not his temperament that will deny him. It is his tennis. Despite his abundant talent, Henman - like British tennis itself - is a throwback to a time that has long since passed. The barometer stroke is his forehand, an elegant shot at best, but unreliable under pressure, hit flat with an old-fashioned eastern grip. Not for him the modern, muscular looping "semi-western" muscular forehand that lays waste to all before it. The variety of his single-handed backhand is a thing of great beauty, whether rolled, chipped or sliced. Not for him the two-handed heavy topspin beloved of so many of his contemporaries.
It is this curious combination of his classic, old-fashioned technique combined with his dogged, single-handed battle on behalf of an entire nation that has made the voyage so compelling. It is David taking on Goliath and doing his best to be King Canute at the same time.
Greg Norman never won at Augusta. Jimmy White is still trying at the Crucible. True fans of sport will recognise that Tim Henman has paid his dues. We Irish love an underdog. If he is still going by the middle of next week, and you were in any doubt, now you know whom to root for.
Tim's time is nearly up and the cycle is about to start all over again as he hands over the baton of brave British battler. If Andy Murray, a combustible 18-year-old Scot from Dunblane, achieves half as much by the time he is done, he will have been a hell of a player.