FORMER British number one, Chris Wilkinson, the Southampton player who reached the third round of Wimbledon four times, was at Centre Court yesterday. He gives his verdict on Tim Henman's defeat to Goran Ivanisevic which denied Britain their first Wimbledon finalist in 63 years.

TIM HENMAN'S hopes of being the first British player since Bunny Austin in 1938 to make the Wimbledon final finally came to an end at the hands of Goran Ivanisevic.

This match spanned over three days and contained all the excitement and mixed emotions which you come to expect from a Tim Henman match.

The British weather, which has been so good this year, had such a major impact on the semi-final.

On Friday, Henman was in so much control of the match that there was only going to be one winner.

He led by two sets to one and Ivanisevic was starting to show signs of his mental deficiencies as his racket started to leave his hands in frustration.

Then came the rain delay, which meant that Ivanisevic was able to regroup and get his mind back on course. Henman was left to ponder what might had been if the match had continued.

When Sunday came along, it was not about tennis or technique, it was a case of who could handle their nerves better would win.

The problem is that when you get nervous it feels as though your arm is a lead weight and your serve loses its pace.

The difference is that even when Ivanisevic is nervous, he is still able to hit a serve at about 110mph, while Henman starts to struggle and hit s serves at 85mph.

This in turn gives the opponent time to return and break serve as Ivanisevic was able to do at 4-5 in the final set.

It is ironic when you remember that Ivanisevic's ranking was not high enough to get directly into the main draw. So the All England Lawn Tennis Club awarded the Croat with a wild card because of his great record at Wimbledon.

In return, Ivanisevic ends up beating Greg Rusedski and Henman, who both had great chances of winning this year's Wimbledon.

What now for Tim Henman? Well, I believe he can take a lot of positives from the fortnight as he has played some great tennis.

Contrary to what some people are saying, I believe he still has the game to win Wimbledon and he will definitely be a major contender in the years to come.

However, this loss will certainly haunt him for a long while.