The seeds of doubt

But it has little to do with Henman’s playing ability – although he does lack some of it.

It’s the class system which has and will continue to beat him and virtually every other half-decent player who steps onto the hallowed All-England Club turf in search of glory.

Class being the discriminative and outdated seeding system.

It was borne in the days when players wore long trousers and skirts, used heavy wooden rackets, and when cyclops was still considered to be a mythical giant with a single eye in the middle of its head!

It was borne in the days when outside broadcasts on the BBC were just a figment of John Logie Baird’s imagination.

It was borne in the days when championship organisers needed to put bums on seats, especially on finals day.

So, a showpiece final between what they hoped would be the top two seeds would guarantee a full house. Nowadays, of course, that’s irrelevant with tickets for the finals harder to find than gold bars in the gutter.

Even though I knew what the response would be, for the record, I sought an explanation from a spokesman for the All-England Club, who said: “Seeding is used at Wimbledon, as well as other Grand Slams, as a way of ensuring that top players do not play each other in the early rounds.

“A seeded player is planted in a certain part of the draw for a tournament to give him or her the best chance to advance to the later rounds.” So, it’s official, some players ARE given preferential treatment.

Surely, now, 76 years since the first seeded All-England Championships took place, it’s time for “out” to be called.

Statistics reveal just how discriminative the seeding system has been.

In the men’s game, only ten non-seeds reached the final before Boris Becker won it in 1985, and Croatian Goran Ivanisevic became the first wildcard entry to succeed two years ago.

For the women, it makes even bleaker reading with just four non-seeds reaching the final and none of them winning – the last 30 years ago when a bespectacled and then lesser-known Billy Jean Moffitt lost 6-3 6-4 to Australia’s Margaret Smith who, of course, was the No.1 seed!

One of those non-seeds was Britain’s Angela Mortimer. She lost 8-6 6-2 to America’s Althea Gibson, in 1958, who had become the first black winner a year earlier and was also top-seeded.

Now before all you know-alls start throwing your anoraks on the floor and stamping on them in disgust at what I am suggesting, I have the greatest respect for players like Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Steffie Graf, Billy Jean King, and countless others who have thrilled the legions of tennis fans down the years.

All champions of the highest class, of course, but would they have won all those titles had they not had the protection of the seeded draw? NO WAY!

I also feel that tennis misses a tremendous opportunity for some extra-special publicity.

The chance to hype-up an event like Wimbledon with a live, open draw in FA Cup fashion, must be better than Sue Barker doing her best to serve up some gumph to keep fans amused (sorry Sir Cliff, you’ve done your stint) during the customary rain-breaks.

But tennis is not alone, as snooker also cueses, sorry chooses, seeding. Stephen Hendry, Mark Williams, Ken Doherty, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Peter Ebdon and the rest... it’s got to be pot luck putting them in any sort of pecking order?

And then there’s darts, with Raymond Barnaveld, Tony David, John Walton and Andy Fordham, to name just a couple of doubles who can throw a mean arrer.

What is it about one-to-one sports that needs seeds anyway?

If Fred Bloggs is No.1 then let him prove it by beating whoever comes his way, and not swerving those in the other parts of the draw until the latter stages, with top, middle or bottom being solely reserved for Michael Barrymore’s Strike It Lucky TV show.

Every year we have the defending men’s Wimbledon champion, often seeded one, playing Joe Nohope, from Nowheresville, in a one-sided three-set mismatch to start the new championship.

Now, suppose we had Lleyton Hewitt drawn against Andre Agassi, then that really would be a mouth-watering smash- hit way to begin. In fact, you might just love it!

Can you imagine what the FA Cup would be like if we had, say, Arsenal seeded 1, Manchester United 2, Newcastle 3, Chelsea 4, Liverpool 5....

We might as well scrap the prelims and start it at the quarter-final stage and let the rest have their own separate tournament, although the FA could make Premier Division sides enter at the first-round stage and really ruffle Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson’s feathers!

Thankfully, so far, the FA has not been drawn into following the policy of EUFA and FIFA of having contrived major football championships.

Keeping clubs from the same country and group winners apart in the subsequent group stages of the Champions League, and seeding in the World Cup Finals, are both own goals in my opinion.

I could also bleat on about how “faster” athletes up to 400 metres and swimmers get preferential middle lanes.

But thanks to the “let’s favour the favourites” approach in tennis, the odds are stacked heavily on us NOT hearing the umpire say in the final.... “Game, set and match to Henman.” After all, if tennis, darts and snooker are supposed to be sports, then why not give everyone a sporting chance?

So go on Timmy, prove me wrong by beating the “system”.

Winning in sport is supposed to be about proving you are the best. Beating whoever, wherever and at whatever stage of a tournament, because we all know there is only one reason to have seeds and do planting.... if you’re a gardener!