2003 Nov 01 - Henman topples Roddick to reach final

Tim Henman has reached the Paris Masters final after a wonderful 7-6(4) 7-6(7) straight sets performance against World No.1 and US Open champion Andy Roddick.

The British No.1 picked up where he left off against Federer yesterday. Tim broke the American's first service game which eventually led to the opportunity of serving out the match at 5-4. A-Rod wasn't about to let the first set go so easily and produced a batch of awesome passing shots to break back. The set went to a tie-break which saw Tim dominate to win 7-4.

A-Rod raised his game in the second set but Tim was still able to match him point for point. Tim had a chance to take the set at 5-4 on the A-Rod serve but was unable to close out the match. Another tie-break followed which was more intense than the first. Although Tim was able to take a swift lead at 6-3, the American was still hanging in there and pulled back the score to 7-6 before Tim finally closed out the match at 9-7.

Afterwards Tim said:

"The start of the match was pretty important, the first five games set the tone and boosted my confidence.

"I sent a message to Andy that I was serving well, and even when he came back at 5-5 I thought there was no need to panic.

"In the second set, I also had ups and downs but that is the way the tennis goes, and I was quite happy when he missed his shot on my sixth match point.

"Now I have my chance tomorrow. I came into this tournament hoping to finish on a high note, and I am on a high note now, though I hope it will be a higher note tomorrow."

In the final Tim will now face the Romanian Andrei Pavel who discarded the Czech Jiri Novak 6-2 4-6 6-4.