A match that told you everything you need to know about the state of british tennis at the moment. Henman's beautiful game is still easy on the eyes, crisp volleys speeding off his racket for winners, opponents drawn to the net by short angled shots then passed crosscourt with ease, duels at the net inevitably finish with Tim striking the winning shot. The ideas, the clever strategy remains but so too the fragility, and with it a new development: a tendency to sink into depression, costing him points, games, even sets, as a couple of poor points triggers a run of bizarre shot selections, erratic groundstrokes wide, long and into the net, allowing Murray to rush towards the finishing line.

At 5-2 in the second set the match seemed over. That is unless you'd seen the previous day's match between Andy and David Ferrer, in which case the turn of events was not in the least surprising. Henman came up with an ace then an aggressive piece of play to lead 30-0. Andy responded with two superb returns to level at 30-30 only to see Henman produce a couple of decent serves that went unreturned as he holds for 5-3.

Still a break ahead Murray serves for the match. A double fault then three more first serves missed. Tim comes up with a superb sliced return winner then two volley winners to break to love. Henman holds serve playing aggressive tennis: a second serve ace, a volley winner, a drive volley winner and a fierce forehand. Murray retreats into his shell, hoping that Tim will make enough mistakes to allow him to hold but from 40-30 Henman takes the initiative each time and gets the break.

Serving for the set, Henman starts promisingly, a smash gets him to 30-0 only to see Andy produce a couple of strong returns and it's 30-40. A crisp volley saves the break point but a brilliant return winner gets Murray a second chance. Again Henman is aggressive winning the point with another decisive volley but the next point he dumps a forehand into the net for a third break point opportunity for Murray. Andy cries out in despair as he nets a return off a faster second serve then fails to return a Henman first serve.

On set point Henman comes up with a faster serve but Murray returns low, Henman volleys deep to the forehand side where Murray rushing across the court manages to fire the ball down the line as his momentum takes him out of court. Henman is there to meet the pass, the volley is just below the height of the net, difficult for most players but routine for Henman. And yet he nets it.

Tim goes on to save another break point before finally losing serve as he nets a forehand. The tiebreak contains an exchange of points against the serve before a couple of loose shots from Tim give Andy the edge and he reaches 6-2. A final forehand winner crosscourt from Henman then Murray fires a backhand winner down the line to win 6-2 7-6.

Murray produced some outstanding tennis yet always seemed more comfortable as the counter puncher. For the first 2/3 of the match his passing shots were more than Henman could handle causing Tim to change strategy, staying back and using the forehand to dominate the rallies. But when Tim found his cutting edge Andy struggled to have an impact on the points. His second serve was horribly predictable - modest medium paced efforts aimed at the backhand left him winning just 31% of the points.

In his postmatch interview Andy explained his strategy had been to get a high first serve percentage to limit Tim's opportunities to attack. One that he achieved managing 56% of first serves in play. Relative to other players that same number might produce a different reaction but as of now, Henman looks like someone who used to be a good player; if you watch enough points you can still see flashes of the old magic, while Murray, whose natural talent is striking, would prefer his opponent to determine the outcome of the rallies, and despite failing to find a single first serve when serving for the match, the figure of 56% is a real achievement.