Henman crashes out in Vegas

Players Under the Microscope / Editor / 02 March 2007 / Leave a Comment

Tim Henman's progress in the Las Vegas Open was cut short when he was knocked out of the round-robin tournament by Feliciano Lopez.

Henman, who was playing in his first event since October after recovering from a knee injury, made a good start against the Spaniard. The British number two won the first set on a tie-break, but the world number 93 stormed back to take the decisive next two and claim a quarter-final place.

Henman, who had already beaten Nicolas Mahut in Nevada, had no answer to Lopez and ended up losing 7-6 (7-1) 3-6 4-6.

Elsewhere in the tournament, top seed and defending champion James Blake also went out despite claiming a win in his second match against Juan Martin del Potro after the Argentinian was forced to retire through injury at 1-6 1-3 down.

Blake, Del Potro and Russia's Evgeny Korolev had all won in Group One, but Korolev was handed a quarter-final berth as a result of his victory over Blake.

The American is now the favourite to claim the Tennis Channel Open title, with Blake currently trading at 2.62.

Marat Safin is the next best at 4, while Lleyton Hewitt can be backed at 5.6 and Feliciano Lopez is trading at 6.4.