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[Emma Jean]

How Andy reacts to his this year's success will largely depend on how many Slams he's going to win next year and not to mention, going forward.

[Grabcopy]

'This gives Andy 1.33 GS (0.33, 0, 0.5, 0.5) per year. Over 5 years, this will turn into 7.65 GSs plus the one he has already won for 8.65 GSs rounded up to 9 GSs.'

Are you German, by any chance, Philip?

[Mackem]

There's no way Rafa is going to be fully competitive at AO after 6 months out.  Too much even for Him.  He'll be back up to full speed for the clay court season

[Rachie]

What im most excited about is what changes him and Lendll will make to his game. I think now the burden is off Andy willl become a better more aggressive player - he hasn't got anything to lose now, so that fear he had before shoud be lifted.

I think if we want to see Any at the top of the game for another 5-6 yrs its essential he becomes more aggresive and finishes points off more quickly too many more matches like that greulling encounter at USO he'll end up like Rafa injured and burnt out. He needs to take care of his body, and to do that he needs to make some changes.

[Emma Jean]

I really agree with you there, Rachie. If Andy wants to have a longer and more successful career then he will have to be more aggressive and given that tennis career is short anyway, he might as well go for it. And yes, since Andy is free from that sort of burden, I am sure he'll be more keen on playing aggressive though if things get tight, he might go back to his tricky self. All remains to be seen of course.

But the GS win couldn't have come at a better time. He can now go and enjoy as much as possible. I was very disheartened to see how he couldn't enjoy his Olympic win as it seemed he was most pleased about - even more so than his USO (for different reasons of course) win, so this is a very well deserved rest. He does have 3 back to back titles to defend but don't want to worry about that right now. I feel we are all very drained but relived and very, very happy and we all deserve a nice break.

[Emma Jean]

I felt throughout that final lendl was really analysisng everything i think at times he wanted to go on court and strangle Andy!! As far as he is concerned there is still work to be done on Andy's game. But now they have the freedom to really explore things which is exciting to see what andy can do because his talent is just unbelivable. The number of titles well....who knows!!

Yes I agree EJ about the break, He really does deserve this rest I hope he relishes all the positive attenetion he is getting because he deserves it all!

I had a friend who had a very bad temper and was forced to take some anger management classes. lol. Anyway, after he came out of that rehab he told me that he now 'trusts' his anger; as in, if he gets mad, he knows he has a reason behind it and it's valid. I thought it was brilliant because obviously he wasn't going to have full control of his anger, but rather he was taught to focus only on the ones where he thought they were justified and in other cases, he simply dismissed them as invalid. So now he has much better control of his anger if not entirely. I believe Andy was in a similar situation. So instead of being really aggressive, he trusted his old game and was more keen on the tactical side. What really let him down was his serve and that had very little to do with being aggressive.

Take Berdcyh for example. Federer was very aggressive against him and that actually forced him to make more errors than usual, because when you try to outhit Berdcyh, the margin is too narrow simply because he never gives you that total control of any point, so you basically end up taking a lot of risks and it then becomes a very hit and miss game. Andy, on the other hand, was very tactical against Berdcyh and kept the errors to the minimum and that was the right strategy against a very aggressive player like Berdych. You don't want to give him that rhythm that he thrives on but of course the conditions were a big part of Berdych's poor performance as well, but I was very convinced Andy was going to come on top regardless, simply because he employs more of a brain game and has different strategies against different players. And had Federer slowed down a bit especially in the 2nd set and been a bit more tactical and allowed Berdcyh to hit more than himself, I really think Federer was going to come on top as well. But both times (and Wimbledon), Federer had the same strategy against Berdcyh. This is actually the reason why I don't feel Federer is all that smart but more gifted. This also reminded me how he could never solve the Nadal factor even on his favourte and best surface.

So I don't think Andy was going to get away with a very aggressive against Nole. Nole's very familiar with that style and he loves a rhythm and he's basically a wall. But still there were times when Andy was aggressive when saw an opportunity. Andy simply frustrates Nole with his slices and variety and that causes more error on Nole's part because Nole doesn't have the patience for it. He was already very disturbed with the conditions. So I don't think Lendl will be hard on him at all. What really let Andy down was his serve and he took a lot of time to adjust his slices. At one point I thought he had completely lost the sense of the height of the net as he kept keeping the ball lower and lower only to net it in the end. But that I think had a lot to do with the nerve and conditions.

But now that the monkey is off the back, he can definitely try and develop a bit more aggressive game going forward, because while his tactics are always going to be there, his speed won't be as effective as he grows older and he relies on his legs/speed quite a lot. Also, he needs to get really comfortable with the aggressive game so that he can trust it more.  But most importantly, he needs to get a really firm control of his both serves.

[Aileen]

I felt throughout that final lendl was really analysisng everything i think at times he wanted to go on court and strangle Andy!! As far as he is concerned there is still work to be done on Andy's game. But now they have the freedom to really explore things which is exciting to see what andy can do because his talent is just unbelivable. The number of titles well....who knows!!

Yes I agree EJ about the break, He really does deserve this rest I hope he relishes all the positive attenetion he is getting because he deserves it all!

Yes, well, I wanted to strangle him at times too!  Anyway Andy isn't going to get much of a break.  He said he'd be back practising today.  I don't know though if Lendl's here with him or not, but Andy did say that the pair of them would have a few things to discuss arising out of the USO.  He's well aware improvements to his game are still needed.  Also there's the small matter of consistency to be addressed.  In some ways I think Andy was quite lucky to even get to the final given some of the tennis he played in the run up to it - but he made it, and won it, by finding a way out of difficult situations, although he really does make life difficult for himself at times!

I didnt like to hear Andy say recently that if he quit playing now..he'd be very happy with his achievemnts... but I may be overly critical with that one. I hope that what he has acheived merely sparks the required confidence to go onto greater things..... which he undoubtably has the talent to do.
I admire Murray for taking on Lendl. It was what he needed to do to not only win a major title.... but to continue... he said himself he was really starting to doubt his place in tennis prior to Lendl. Thats what seperates the best from the rest in any  walk of life....the determination to get better...Andy has that and most dont.

I think that was just a throw-away remark by Andy, not to be taken seriously.  He's since said that he wants to build on his USO success and win more Slams AND to become No.1 - so the goals have already been set, and I believe that with Lendl's continuing guidance and support that this has a very good chance of happening, especially, as seems very likely, Federer could well retire next year, perhaps even this, and there's also the question as to just how long Nadal's already damaged knees are going to hold out.  He won't be returning to competitive tennis until the beginning of next year, by which time he'll have been out for six months - and that's a long spell for a player, no matter how good he is, to make a comeback from, so for the moment at least Djokovic would appear to be Andy's main threat.

I really don't want to predict how many more Slams Andy might win - (a) he's now 25, so possibly has 2/3 years at the top of his game, and (b) a lot depends on how injury free he stays.

[Alis]

Ii agree bbh - Andy came through those matches because he was the better player and had the belief and determination to do it - something we haven't always seen from him in the past.  How many times have we seen Rafa and Fed struggle in the early stages of a Major only to come through and win it in the end?