Henman hits out at the 'battling Brit' tag

Tim Henman today completed his preparations for an historic French Open semifinal against third seed Guillermo Coria and said: "I may have had a good run so far but I want to go further."

Henman is the first British man for 41 years to reach the last four at Roland Garros and is the only non-Argentine in tomorrow's semi-finals.

The British No1 believes his remarkable run - he had not got past the third round in eight previous attempts - will convince other home grown players to try their luck on clay.

He said: "There isn't any reason why you can't have success on clay if you approach the surface in the right way.

"I absolutely don't go along with the view that reaching a semi-final is good enough for a 'battling Brit'. I know there is a lot of interest at home in my run here and I was one of the people getting excited when England were trying to win the Rugby World Cup in November."

Meanwhile, former champion Jennifer Capriati faced Russia's Anastasia Myskina in the women's semi-finals later today while Argentina's Paola Suarez took on Elena Dementieva, another Russian.

Capriati is enjoying her 12th Grand Slam semi-final appearance, and the fact that her right hamstring is heavily strapped suggests that a quick straight-sets victory is the order of the day.

Given that Capriati, the seventh seed, likes to play at a breakneck pace it will be interesting to see how Myskina tries to slow things down on centre court. The Russian is making her Grand Slam semifinal debut having accounted for an errorr idden Venus Williams in the quarter-finals.

Myskina is the highest ranked of the 12 Russian players in the women's top 100 singles list. Six of those are in the top 20.

Capriati, who has a 5-1 career record against Myskina, is favourite to make it into her second Paris final where her opponent is likely to be Dementieva, who ended the hopes of Amelie Mauresmo, of France, in the quarter-finals.

The ninth seed takes on 14th seed Suarez, who has proved that Argentine women can also get into the Roland Garros semi-finals as well as their men.