Henman's mind turns to Melbourne

Tim Henman gave himself the all-clear for January's Australian Open in Melbourne after testing out his recently-injured right knee at London's Royal Albert Hall.

The 32-year-old British number two was delighted after a straight-sets victory over Australia's Mark Philippoussis in their charity match.

"I'm just going to go straight down there," he said. "I've done lots of different things in the lead-up to it in previous years so I'll go to Melbourne the Monday before and just practice and get ready and see how that goes."

Henman secured the only tie break of the match in the final game to take a 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 victory but the real winner was charity Brainwave which will receive all the proceeds of the match and associated events.

Both Henman and Philippoussis, whose career has been plagued by knee problems which saw him drop so far in the rankings that he needed a wild card to play at this year's Wimbledon, both declared themselves "okay" after slugging it out on the fast Albert Hall court.

Henman added: "I struggled a little bit with my knee in the last couple of tournaments. It's a little bit bizarre, I've got a knee spur which is little bit below the knee.

"I've had it since I was five or six and have been perfectly aware of it but it's never given me any trouble, but in Basle it started to flare up.

"The tendons which run over the top of it got inflamed and irritated but it's definitely improved since then," he explained.

Henman, who aims to play a full schedule in 2007 as he bids to climb back into the world top 20 after this year's injury woes, added: It was a good test for it.

"I felt I was 80 or 90% and to play in this sort of environment, which is quite relaxed, was a good way to test it out. I've been working very hard, so to play in a match situation and see how it recovers is a good benchmark and gives me a good indication of what I can and can't do."