Henman loses again

TIM HENMAN believes he can only get better this season despite suffering his third competitive singles defeat in four matches.

The British number one struggled to cope with the power of Argentinian Agustin Calleri's ground strokes and lost in straight sets in the second round of the Pacific Life Open Masters Series event at Indian Wells in California.

However, he felt there was no reason to be too downhearted as he continued to feel his way back to full fitness, having missed the opening months of the season with a shoulder injury.

"In terms of my game in general there isn't much wrong," he said. "I can certainly get better, but the more I put myself in these situations, the more matches I play, the better I will become."

The South American broke Henman in the first game of the match to win the first set 6-4 and won the second on a tie-break.

Henman survived eight break points in the second set before finally succumbing on his own serve and falling 4-3 behind.

However, that setback seemed to give him a spark and his excellent net play enabled him to build a 4-1 tie-break lead.

Calleri was not overawed however and won the next six points to achieve a mini-break and close out the match on his own serve.

Henman admitted: "The better player won. But if you break down the match into individual games and I pretty much donated my serve in the first set and couldn't create any opportunities on his serve."

Henman suffered a second defeat soon afterwards, this time in the doubles competition as he and India's Mahesh Bhupathi lost 2-6 6-3 2-6 to Leander Paes also of India and David Rikl of the Czech Republic.