TIM Henman put Oxford on the sporting map as he destroyed No 3 seed Petr Korda at Wimbledon.

He showed no mercy to the Czech left-hander, who was nursing a sprained left ankle, and posted a ruthless 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 victory to become the first Briton since Roger Taylor in 1973 to reach the men's semi-finals.

The 23-year-old, who grew up in Weston-on-the-Green and still considers Oxford his home despite now living in London, set up a clash with champion Pete Sampras in the last four tomorrow.

And while no-one else gives him a chance against a player rated by many as the greatest in history, Tim himself believes he has real chances - because he's playing so well.

"I'm aware that Pete's the best grass court player in the world. He's won 15 sets in a row and barely dropped his serve this championship.

"But I feel I'm serving as well as I've ever served.

"I didn't face a single break point on my serve against Korda who has one of the best returns in the game.

"I was clinical in the way I took my opportunities and I felt it was an even better performance than against Rafter."

It proved to be a comfortable ride for the Oxford ace with Korda still troubled by injury. The Centre Court crowd was subdued compared with previous rounds. Seemingly still numbed by the St Etienne shoot-out of the night before, they soon realised as well that Korda couldn't move as freely as he wanted.

Henman started brilliantly, winning his first ten points on serve and breaking the 30-year-old Czech on his first service game.

Once again the 12th seed was in devastating form on his serve. And he never relinquished control, dominating at the net and frequently winning the longer rallies.

Henman wrapped it up in 1 hour 44 minutes and saluted reaching his first grand slam semi-final with arms raised to the heavens.

Indeed, it was a mini grand slam of his own because he has now beaten the reigning French Open (Kafelnikov), Wimbledon (Krajicek), US Open (Rafter) and Australian Open (Korda) champions at the All England Club over the last three years.

Korda felt he couldn't play his best tennis because of his ankle.

" You could see it was bad, but I did not want to give up. I will stand and fight to the last point. That is me and I will have to break my leg to retire."

Banbury's Lizzie Jelfs, who notched up her first senior win at Wimbledon with a first-round triumph in the mixed doubles with Jamie Delgado on Tuesday, fared less well yesterday, going out 6-1, 6-2 in the second round to Americans Jack Waite and Kimberly Po.

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