MASTERS CUP FIELD 1 Roger Federer (Swi) 2 Andy Roddick (US) 3 Lleyton Hewitt (Aus) 4 Carlos Moya (Spa) 5 Guillermo Coria (Arg) 6 Marat Safin (Rus) 7 Tim Henman (GB) 10 Gaston Gaudio (Arg)

Henman needed to get to the quarter-finals of this week's Paris Masters to reach the tournament in Houston.

But Andre Agassi and David Nalbandian, who lie just behind Henman in the Champions Race, have both withdrawn from the Paris event with injuries.

It means Henman has now secured his Masters Cup spot, regardless of his performance in Paris this week.

Two Grand Slam semi-finals and a final appearance in Indian Wells had put Henman on the verge of qualification after he missed out on last year's event.

But early defeats at the Madrid Masters and the Swiss Indoors had dented his hopes and it looked as though he would need a good display in Paris to clinch his place at the season finale.

But now Henman can defend the Paris title he won last year without the pressure of trying to secure himself a place in the prestigious end-of-season tournament.

Henman targets Parisian defence

"Confirming my place in Houston has been a goal of mine all year so it's very satisfying to qualify," Henman told his website.

"It's the result of a lot of hard work over what has been a great year for me."

The British number one can attempt to defend the Paris title he won in such thrilling fashion last year without the added pressure of chasing a Masters Cup berth.

Russia's Marat Safin is the other beneficiary of the injury withdrawals - both Agassi and Nalbandian have hip problems - now assured of the other place in the eight-man field in Houston.

These withdrawals from the elite ATP tournaments bring discredit to the circuit Paris Masters spokesman Masters team wary of withdrawals

Agassi, the fifth seed in Paris, was a runner-up in Stockholm on Sunday losing to Sweden's Thomas Johansson while Nalbandian, the eighth seed, was a losing finalist to Jiri Novak of the Czech Republic in Basel.

The duo are replaced in the Paris draw by "lucky losers" Victor Hanescu of Romania and Italy's Davide Sanguinetti.

The late withdrawals of Agassi and Nalbandian has infuriated the organisers in Paris.

The pair's decision to pull out came hard on the heels of last week's withdrawals by world number one Roger Federer, former French Open champions Carlos Moya and Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain and world number five Guillermo Coria of Argentina.

"The organisers of the Paris Masters deplore these withdrawals which have added to the long list of players absent both from Paris and the Madrid Masters two weeks ago," said a tournament spokesman.

"Whatever the reasons, these withdrawals from the elite ATP tournaments bring discredit to the circuit."

We could have only one tournament each week and a player could still play too many weeks Mark Miles ATP chief executive

Such is the concern at the problem of injury withdrawals that the directors of the five European Masters tournaments will meet in Paris on Tuesday to discuss the issue.

Critics have said the problem lies with their being too many tournaments.

But on Saturday, ATP chief executive Mark Miles said the issue of the players' health was "important" but denied that problems were caused by an excessive number of tournaments.

"I don't think the problem is the number of tournaments, it's the players choosing to play more... than is good for them physically," Miles said.

The ATP requires players to enter the Grand Slams, the nine Masters Series tournaments and at least five other events.

However, according to Miles, many players chose to play a lot more than that.

"Either it's because the event is in their country or because of the economic opportunity or their desire to improve their game," he said.

"Over the last five or six years we have reduced the total number of ATP tournaments from a high of nearly 80 to today in the low 60s, about 62 events. At this point we feel that's about the right number.

"We could have only one tournament each week and a player could still play too many weeks."