Jim Rafter defends son Patrick

Losing Wimbledon finalist Pat Rafter's father Jim defended his son as a winner on Wednesday and backed beaten semifinalist Tim Henman, saying the Briton had been "crucified".

Rafter, the Australian two-time U.S. Open winner and former world number one, lost last year's Wimbledon men's singles final to American Pete Sampras and on Monday went down 9-7 in the fifth set to Croatian wildcard and three-time runner-up Goran Ivanisevic.

"But as far as I'm concerned, Pat is a winner," Jim Rafter wrote in the Herald Sun newspaper.

"...The way he handles defeat, I believe, makes him a great man.

"I want to make this point because sometimes, when fans want someone to win so much, there can be a bad reaction when they don't.

"I saw this happen in London to Tim Henman.

"When Henman got beaten (in five sets by Ivanisevic), the press and fans crucified him.

"They reckoned he was a loser, he couldn't fight, he couldn't do this, he couldn't do that.

"That was unfair to that lad. He put up a good fight and he deserved better."

Jim Rafter said he had never been more proud of Pat.

"He is a true warrior out there on the court," Rafter said.

"He is out there to win, but he's never out there to win at any cost.

"...Being a member of a large family (of nine children), I believe you have to battle more, there has to be a mutual trust in the family and there's a responsibility for each other.

"There's no opportunity to become spoilt or selfish."

Rafter said his son was a man of "real character" and said Australia's World Cup-winning cricket and rugby union captains, Steve Waugh and John Eales, were of similar stock.

"...We're lucky we've got them. We should never turn on them," he said.

Echoing the views of many of the more than four million people who watched the Wimbledon final on Australian television on Monday night, Rafter said of his son: "...He was a winner and he made us proud."

The Herald Sun, The Age and The Australian all ran front-page pictures on Wednesday of a smiling Rafter with his arm around girlfriend Lara Feltham.

In sports-mad Melbourne, home of the Australian Open tennis tournament, 1.11 million fans were watching the final on television around midnight local time, "the biggest one-city tennis audience in Australian TV history", The Age said.

The television ratings figures almost matches those of the biggest-drawing event in Melbourne each year, the Australian Rules football grand final in September.