Tim Henman’s decision to quit tennis may have come as a shock. But in the broader scheme of things the best thing to come out of Oxford since the Boat Race may have played one too many matches.

For a number of years now, Henman has been one of Britain’s best sporting under-achievers. This may sound like a contradiction in terms but for this thoughtful man from the Dreaming Spires, the end surely came at the right time.

Henman has retired from the world of tennis after just over a decade of near misses and might-have-beens. How often in the past has British tennis almost touched the summit only to lose its footing? A men’s single champion at Wimbledon now seems like a Hollywood fantasy film.

'The impression is that had Henman practiced his chosen sport from the crack of dawn to late at night then the Wimbledon plate might have been his for the taking'

In the end, of course, we all know why Henman missed out on the big one. Oxford-born, he came from a respectable middle class family with a silver spoon in his mouth. You suspect that Henman’s parents would have liked their son to be a doctor rather than play tennis.

You see Henman comes from the kind of privileged background where everything moves at a slower pace. Ladies have permanent coffee mornings, village fetes are the social highlight of the year, and vicars fall off bicycles.

In deepest Oxford young Tim must have felt like a fish out of water. While he sharpened his forehand winners, the rest of the population compared their prize marrows and jams. Oxford is all sleepy cathedrals and sedateness rather than the home for fa uture Wimbledon champion.