Lloyd has known Henman since the Great British Hope was 10 and part of the Slater squad, a coaching project funded by Lloyd and the business tycoon Jim Slater “Even at 10 he was blinkered,” says Lloyd. “He had the selfishness you need to become a top tennis player.”Like John McEnroe, Lloyd truly believes that this could be Henman’s year. “He plays a great grass-court game and he believes in himself. He played some great Davis Cup matches for me, and when it comes to the crunch I do think he’s got it. I think he was right to get rid of David Felgate, who was a friend more than a coach or mentor.

But even when he was with Felgate, I’d like to have seen him hire someone like an Edberg for the big tournaments.”Edberg had such a similar game to Tim’s. Tim’s serve still tends to go on a big point, and he tends to hit his forehand too hard Edberg was like that. He could have helped Tim, because, when you’re playing someone like Agassi or Hewitt who plays their ground shots so well, you’ve got to get a big percentage of your first serves in.”Which an in-form Greg Rusedski does, of course. So what price Rusedski, who today plays Byron Black for a place in the third round? “Greg can do it, too. He wins matches when he’s not playing well, and he has a big heart. His problem is that he finds it hard to put 100 percent trust in people That’s why so many coaches have fallen by the wayside.

He finds it hard to bring a lot of people into his world.”Together, Henman and Rusedski represent the best of British tennis, with a distinct void before you get to second-best And Rusedski is hardly the product of British coaching. All of which, according to Lloyd, is not so much disappointing as downright shameful.”We have two great men players One I found and one’s from Canada. There is not another British man in the top 100, maybe the top 150 We have not one lady in the top 150 And it’s been the same story for 30 or 40 years. I don’t believe in bad luck going on that long.”We can’t blame facilities any more Morocco has good players, Bulgaria has good players. How many indoor courts do they have in Bulgaria? So I don’t buy that as an excuse. We have the best-known and wealthiest tournament in the world, we have 60 million people.. those things do not add up to having no tennis players. It’s because the coaching is terrible.”That’s why we started the Slater squad, because we felt the LTA weren’t doing their job.

But the LTA in their stupidity went to parents and said: ‘You’ve got to come to us’. After that it was a real gutsy call for parents to send their child to a Lloyd scheme that the LTA hated, so it died. It was the most successful scheme this country’s ever had.”Like Reggie Perrin’s boss, C J, Lloyd did not get where he is today by underestimating his achievements. But then his record is there for all to admire, or envy, or denigrate, not only as a decent Davis Cup captain but as the founder of the hugely successful David Lloyd leisure clubs.