IF, as expected, Tim Henman announces details of his impending retirement at a press conference in New York later today, Britain will lose one of its most debated and divisive sportsmen.

To some, the 32-year-old is the country's greatest tennis player since Fred Perry, to others he is the perfect embodiment of Britain's unerring ability to produce serial losers.

Yet Henman's mistake was not losing too much. His error, if it can be termed as such, was to be too successful for his own good.

Britain, lest we forget, has not produced a Wimbledon men's singles champion since 1936. In the decade before Henman began playing, it didn't even look like producing a player capable of reaching the second round.

Yet all of a sudden, here was a fresh-faced hero from the Home Counties who would go on to win ten ATP Tour titles, one Masters Series title and reach the semi-finals at Wimbledon four times.

Thrillingly, he would do so with a picture-perfect grass-court game that evoked memories of Britain's glory years. While other players began to adapt a ball-beating baseline game to the peculiarities of grass, Henman remained a sepia-tinged throwback to the days when the Wimbledon organisers prioritised precision over power and skill over speed.

Unfortunately, of course, the game had already got away from him. Thirty years earlier, three of the four Grand Slam events had been played on grass. Back then, Henman would surely have been a serial champion.

By the time he was twirling a racket in anger, though, Wimbledon was the sole grass-court survivor, and even it had been changed irrevocably thanks to the introduction of slower court surfaces and less responsive balls.

As the years went by, Henman had to fight harder and harder just to remain competitive. That he managed it was testament to a determination and courage that his detractors continue to insist he does not possess.

He does, it is just that his demeanour and conduct does not sit easily within a sporting world that increasingly prioritises style over substance.

There was always something slightly pathetic about the fist-pumping celebration that Henman adopted in later years. It was if the constant sniping about being 'too nice to win' had finally persuaded the serial semi-finalist that outward signs of commitment really were more important than inner belief.

Even more pathetic, of course, were the annual outpourings of 'Henmania', a particularly nauseating brand of Daily Mail-led jingoism that revolved around middle-aged women waving Union Jack flags and wearing jester hats.

If anyone ever needed an adequate explanation for why British tennis continued to limp from one crisis to the next during Henman's decade of domestic dominance, it could be found in the legion of Henmaniacs who crawled out from their Home Counties homesteads once a year to cheer on their beloved Tiger Tim.

Even Henman appeared faintly embarrassed by it all, spending the latter half of his career embroiled in a largely unsuccessful attempt to develop an all-court game that might have loosened his seemingly symbiotic ties to Wimbledon.

In the end, the two entities became inseparable. Henman was lost without Wimbledon, Wimbledon was a different tournament once its hero went out. And out he always went, of course, although a record of four semi-final defeats is hardly something to be mocked.

True, Henman never won the tournament that came to define him, and British tennis eventually came to view his successor, Andy Murray, as its likelier saviour.

But as his retirement draws near, it would be wrong to brand him a loser. That epithet sits rather more easily with the likes of Andrew Castle and Chris Bailey, Henman's one-time contemporaries who called time on their tennis to take up a lucrative career in the media.

While they threw barbed criticism in Henman's direction, he continued to pursue his dream. And that, for me, makes him one of Britain's winners.

Speaking of winners, congratulations are due to Durham for winning their maiden first-class trophy at Lord's at the weekend.

The Friends Provident Trophy was just reward for the effort and commitment that has transformed Durham into a leading first-class county - it is just a shame that their success was tarnished by the short-sightedness of the ECB.

With more than 8,000 Durham supporters packed into Lord's on Saturday evening, the stage was set for a thrilling celebration when the rain began to fall at around 5.30pm.

Hampshire were more than two-thirds of the way through their innings, and were so far behind the required run rate that the game was as good as up.

But instead of crowning Durham champions there and then, the authorities ruled that everyone would have to return to play out the remaining 16-and-a-half overs on Sunday morning.

Fine for players and officials, not so great for the thousands of fans who had travelled the length of the country to watch history in the making.

Clearly, there are times when a reserve day will be needed.

But once a side batting second has passed the halfway point in their innings, they are far enough on to stand or fall by their efforts.

Not for the first time, cricket emerged from one of its flagship occasions as the biggest loser of all.