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Woman’s hair flick to blame for Rusedski loss

Greg Rusedski has put the blame for his Australian Open loss against fellow "Brit" Tim Henman on a second row woman who flicked her hair at an inopportune moment.

He told reporters: "I was 40-30 up and facing Tim's serve at a crucial moment in the game when this woman flicked her hair. The sun caught it and I was blinded. It cost me the game."

Although Rusedski said he was not going to track down the woman in question, he has called for a no-flick policy to be introduced at all major tournaments and for women with shiny hair to be shaved bald or forced to wear a non-reflective hat.

The hair-flick incident was not the only distraction that Rusedski was forced to endure as he was outplayed by Henman. He complained of line calls going against him, a flock of seagulls obstructing his view of the game at a crucial time, the court's surface, Henman's smirk, the line judge's silly hair, the time it took ball boys to get across the court, the spectators being too noisy, the sun being too hot, the wrong sort of paint used in the line markings, the scoreboard being in the wrong font and the smell of hamburgers wafting in from elsewhere in the tennis complex.

However an expert told us it was just as likely that Rusedski lost the match because Henman played consistently better throughout the match. "It is possible that these reasons are just excuses from an ego-maniac tennis star who is simply not as good as he thinks he is," the professor told us.

A psychologist dismissed that theory as "hocus pocus", offering instead a different reason for the loss. "It is quite clear than Mr Rusedski is suffering from an identity crisis caused by being thought of as an Englishman when he is quite clearly as Canadian as a convention of Mounties dressed in seal-pelt puffa jackets." If true, this would explain why everyone in the UK was secretly pleased that Henman - a true Brit - beat the pampered ponce 6-4 6-3 1-6 6-3.

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True Brit that he is, Henman then crashed out of the Australian Open in straight sets. Despite the support of hundreds of sexually-frustrated temp secretaries with Union Jacks painted on their faces, he quickly succumbed 6-2 7-6 6-4 to Swede Jonas Bjorkman. Tennis fans can expect "Tiger" Tim to present an extensive list of excuses within the next two days.

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