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[*Sparkle*]

Apparently so.  I'm sure I read his parents had to really put themselves out to give him a break, which combined with injuries, is a good explanation for why he could be very good, despite breaking through relatively late.

Knowing how much it would mean to him and his whole family is one of the reasons I was better able to take his victory over Andy.  It felt mean spirited to put my desire for Andy to narrow the ranking gap with Roger/Nole over a massive breakthrough performance/tournament for a talented player who has put in the hard graft and tough sacrifices.

[Emma Jean]

Well the style of Tennis is always going to change. I'm not going to stop watching because I can adjust to it I guess. Saying that, I honestly don't think the big servers will get far. Raonic is a future top 5 player imo, BUT I think he is going to adjust his game to get there. I don't see him having much success with the big serving alone.

I agree. Tennis is going to change from time to time and true fans will always stick to it. On the other forum, I've read countless times from Federer fans mainly, how they hate the type of tennis now - meaning they simply hate Nole, Andy, Nadal's style of play who they find very, very defensive - so I see it as another sets of complaints by fans who are biased and aren't true fans of tennis. And you can see here the opposite so it goes both ways. I lived through the 90s and that era was dominated by the big servers, big guys, big time players and I simply loved it. The only thing I am not a big fan of is when I see a match between players of  similar style - be it Andy vs Nole or Sampras vs Ivanisevic. But still, I enjoyed it very much though the latter I found much more intense, because there was absolutely no margin for error, so it would keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time, that is, if it was a big match. I actually really and truly hated the match between Nadal vs Nole at this year's AO, as it was longer than I'd expected and I found it very difficult to sit through the whole match. But you know, that's very subjective. I am sure many loved it.

Anyway, I forgot who mentioned it here but Sampras was 6'1" and was never known as a power player. He was more about precision and accuracy. Whatever power he had, like Federer, it was very natural and that's why you'd never see him grunt because he didn't need extra power. And I agree with MH. If Andy had a very big, reliable serve, some of the fans would have never complained about that, so it is quite hypocritical of them. Think about the times it would have gotten Andy out of trouble in the past and he probably would have won a few Slams by now.

Re: today's big servers, other than karlovic (even he is not that bad), I don't think today's big servers are all about serve, though, I would say the 90s big server were much more complete and were bigger players in terms of name and fame. Most of them won Slams for a start.

[Emma Jean]

JJ breaks Simon just in time to close it in 2. What a beautiful player this JJ is. Calm and collected and his tennis is awesome. Love his forehand and his net game.

[caroline]

That jjs drop shot mad and it works nearly every time.

[caroline]

And so jj wins it.

[Caz]

I wasn't worried when Andy lost to JJ even though he 'tried' his best, but he didn't 'play' his best. What did worry me though was at one point during the match, he kind of cocked his foot upwards and looked at the toe of his shoe and I immediately thought of the damaged toenail. It takes quite a while to grow back, so I do hope he hasn't done more damage there. Did anyone else notice that?

[Alis]

I wasn't worried when Andy lost to JJ even though he 'tried' his best, but he didn't 'play' his best. What did worry me though was at one point during the match, he kind of cocked his foot upwards and looked at the toe of his shoe and I immediately thought of the damaged toenail. It takes quite a while to grow back, so I do hope he hasn't done more damage there. Did anyone else notice that?

Someone tweeted that they had seen Andy limping off the Eurostar - perhaps his toe is bothering him.  Better that than his back I would think.