Of church-sponsored demigods and women using intuition

Cynthia Lum/WireImage.com Tim Henman couldn't break out of the second round.

FROM WIMBLEDEON – Much of my Thursday morning and the early afternoon was taken up trying to get the US Fed Cup story straight. (See today's TR newsletter, if you're a subscriber.)

For those of you who serious tennis followers in the US, it's a worthwhile story, even if the players who are upset aren't the sports leading lights. But since the hallowed team concept is constantly preached even in the very individual sport of tennis, it's worth hearing what they have to say. Besides reading our newsletter, take a look at Sandy Harwitt's account for the AP and Bonnie de Simone's piece yesterday on espn.com.

Quote of the day (as far as us journalists think) goes to Jill Craybas, who after Harwitt and I spoke to her, and Laura Granville asked, "Are you going to write a story about this?'" Cute.

Apparently, Meilen Tu had been making the rounds to her peers after we spoke to her, saying that there is journalistic interest in her plight.

What may get lost in the shuffle in the newsletter is the comment from Russia's Nadia Petrova who, like the Americans, is frustrated with her captain. The US and Russia will face off in Stowe, Vermont in two weeks time.

Petrova says that like US captain Zina Garrison, Russian captain and tennis chief Shamil Tarpishev hasn't reached out as of late either. Just coming off an injury, Petrova says that she and Svetlana Kuznetsova, who has an abdominal injury, may not be healthy enough to play Stowe.

"I wish he would do that and personally pick up the phone and talk to players," Petrova said. "There are not much communication going and it should be more in advance so he can get an idea of the whole picture."

If Petrova and Kuznetsova don't compete, then exactly who will deep Russia trot out? Petrova was thinking that Maria Sharapova might give it a crack, but Maria has pretty much said no unless she loses early at Wimbledon and even then, she may skip it to rest her shoulder. Anna Chakvetadze, Elena Dementieva, Dinara Safina and Elena Vesnina could be on the team, but who knows at this point.

Enough Fed Cup for now but back to Petrova - who says she loves her sport again - later.

There were oodles of matches today to reflect on and I wrote up James Blake and Venus Williams for foxsports.com/tennis, so go there if you want more in depth stuff on them. I also touched on six other Friday matches and Sharapova's court generalmanship.

TIMBLEDON COMES TUMBLING DOWN
But let's get right to Tim Henman, who has not, according to him, played his last match at the AELTC after going down 7-6(3), 7-6(5), 3-6, 2-6, 6-1 to Feliciano Lopez. Henman fought like hell while he could. But in the fifth set sweat was dripping off the back off his crew cut and he wasn't stepping in quickly enough on his returns. Sure the service-bombing F-Lo is a tough draw on grass, but the Timbledon of five years ago would have pulled that one out. He couldn't because at 32 years and with a bad back, he's slower and more fragile. He's capable of a couple terrific efforts, but he gets tired faster than he once did.

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