Depending upon your point of view, we're saying goodbye to a giant of British sport or seeing the back of an embarrassing British loser.

Tim Henman will retire after Great Britain's Davis Cup tie against Croatia next month, bowing out at Wimbledon 13 years after making his first appearance at the All England Club.

After more than a decade he will no longer have to carry British tennis on his shoulders, or see himself portrayed in the national press as a donkey, among other things.

And the public will not have to endure the annual will he/won't he saga every June as Henman battles in vain through endless five-setters at Wimbledon, knowing all along that, in the end, he won't.

Henman's defeats have often been painted as a failure of nerve; of the limp-wristed, weak-willed, chinless Brit crumbling under pressure.

The nickname, Tiger Tim, didn't help. He never looked likely to maul an opponent as opposed to just wear him down - more of a trooper than a tiger.

Then there was the Henman fist pump, which was a bit like watching Prince William trying to dance: not exactly natural.

All of which says as much about the sport's place in the British sporting landsape as it does the player himself, with tennis always viewed as a two-week garden party in June and middle-class Henman its perfect embodiment.

The truth is that Henman had plenty of grit and won his fair share of tight matches, especially at Wimbledon, but in four of his six Grand Slam semi-finals he was comprehensively outplayed by the best player on the planet at the time.

He lost twice to Pete Sampras, once to Roger Federer and once to Lleyton Hewitt - all world number one - as well as once to Guillermo Coria, the best clay-courter of the time.

And then there was Goran Ivanisevic.

In the six years that have passed since their semi-final it seems to have become accepted that Henman somehow blew it with the Wimbledon title in his hands. He didn't.

The rain certainly played a part but Henman ultimately went down in five sets during which he never once served for the match, or was even a break up in the fourth or fifth, and eventually lost a four-game shootout to a man with a monster serve.

Not to mention the fact that he would have faced two-time US Open champion Pat Rafter in the final, a player he had a decent record against but was hardly going to be a pushover.

In fact his best opportunity probably came at the French Open against Coria in 2004, when he led by a set and 4-2 before the realisation of what he might achieve appeared to set in.

Henman's game had its limitations, the lack of a big serve to back up his volleys being the most damaging, but he finished in the word's top 10 in five different years, and in the top 20 a further three.

And when his game came together he played like no-one else in the modern game, as those who saw him beat Roddick and Federer on the way to his only Masters title in Paris in 2003 would remember.

He was one of the very best players in the world for the best part of a decade, but never the best, and barring the occasional Petr Korda or Richard Krajicek, such players do not win Grand Slam titles.

But beyond any of the sporting intricacies Henman became, for good or ill, a part of the national culture in the UK.

He brought an extra dimension to a truly great sporting event that those of us not around to see Virginia Wade win Wimbledon in 1977 had never experienced - that British people could play tennis as well as watch it.