By Jonathan Overend BBC Sport tennis commentator

For a minute I thought Great Britain were in the Davis Cup final.

Here I was, sitting in the same seat from where I watched Russia's remarkable comeback to beat France in the 2002 final, and a near capacity crowd was bringing the house down in support of their hero Sebastien Grosjean.

The crowd, whipped up by a band playing dodgy rock covers, waved their flags and chanted "Allez Grosjean" between every point.

The Parisians were willing their men onto glory and Britain was standing in their path.

HAPPY HENMAN Henman and a fan celebrate a famous win in the Paris Masters Match report: Henman beats Grosjean

But this is the BNP Paribas Masters and on the other side of the net, sadly not representing his Davis Cup team (that remains an unlikely dream with Britain relegated to the Euro/Africa zone) but playing for himself, Mr Tim Henman.

Henman said on Monday he had nothing to lose against Grosjean and, while that sort of comment normally gets filed under 'banned cliches of our time', it summed up his attitude.

He had nothing to lose and he played like it.

He unleashed daring backhands and forehands and attacked the Grosjean second serves with real purpose.

One or two points stood out for me, most of them at big moments.

Serving at 4-4 in the second set he faced a break point which, if lost, would allow Grosjean to serve for the match.

His volleying had not always been secure but, on this occasion, he serve/volleyed like he was in the Wimbledon sunshine not in the hot stuffy atmosphere of the Palais Omnisports.

Then, in the next game, he carved out a set-point of his own and played a superb point.

Grosjean is stunned as Henman beats him

Grosjean's serves down the middle had real ferocity but Henman stretched to reach a forehand reply, followed it up with a trademark backhand approach and levelled the match with a decent stop volley.

There were two match-winning moments from the deciding set.

The first as Henman received serve, leading 3-2 on break point, when he unleashed his best backhand return of the year, trapping Grosjean by his ankles.

"It was great to see it go back so quickly," he told me afterwards. It flew.

Ahead 6-5 the pressure was off Henman.

Grosjean served to try and take the deciding set into a tie-break. "I'd decided to be really aggressive and attack on every point," said Henman.

A simple plan, but he carried it off superbly, forcing errors, and he broke to love to win the match.

"Maybe I'm guilty of trying too hard sometimes," he later said and you could see what he meant.

With the pressure off and with nothing to lose he pulled off a great win which sent the French crowd home in almost as much shock as 12 months ago, after that crushing Davis Cup defeat.