No excuses from tired Henman

Tim Henman refused to make any excuses for his third-round defeat to Ivan Ljubicic in the Madrid Masters today.

The top seed had a blood test on Wednesday to discover the cause of his fatigue, but insisted his 4-6 6-4 2-6 loss was down to his own poor play.

“From the waist up, I feel fine. I don’t feel ill, but I just don’t have any energy,” he said.

“But I was hitting the ball poorly. It’s as simple as that. I was erratic. Every game was a struggle.”

Henman lost the opening set but looked to have regained the upper hand when he took the second to force a decider.

But the British number one committed too many unforced errors as Ljubicic advanced to the quarter-finals.

Henman was always forced to battle hard to hold his serve against the Croatian and was eventually broken in the 10th game of the opening set.

He saved one break point with a fortunate volley but luck favoured Ljubicic on the next point, a net cord giving him a second chance to break which he gratefully accepted.

Henman looked to be heading for a straight-sets defeat when he faced two break points midway through the second set.

But he dug deep to level the scores at 3-3 and then made the most of the momentum swing by taking his first break point in the next game.

The 30-year-old then served out to take the set 6-4 and force a decider.

Henman seemed to have the upper hand following the second set but played a poor service game to fall 4-2 behind in the decider.

Another unforced error allowed his opponent to hold serve and Henman looked thoroughly disgusted with himself as he trudged back to his chair.

He managed to save one set point on his serve in the next game but yet another forehand error put him out of his misery.