IT COULD well be true that Lendl may have been instrumental some way or the other in rallying round Murray to slay the monkey of self-doubt that had plagued his subconscious for many years. Yet a group of sizeable fatalists believe that his triumph at the National Tennis Centre in New York was preordained. They argue that how else could have Federer’s fourth round opponent Mardy Fish fallen ill all of a sudden and withdraw from the tournament that laid off Federer for four consecutive days making him rusty before he met Thomas Berdych in the quarter finals. How else could a gusty wind be unleashed so fiercely, as never before in the history of the play-offs, neutralizing Thomas Berdych’s high toss services and blistering ground strokes to Murray’s advantage? How else could anyone explain the weather playing havoc with the second semifinal denying Djokovic a day’s rest before the final match, at the same time letting Murray enjoy the luxury and eventually inflicting leg cramps to Djokovic in the fifth set that otherwise more than likely would have gone his way? (If one considers the score line of the second set when Djokovic was in his worst patch of Monday night’s ball game he obviously was in control of the emerging drama, most of it if not wholly, over his rival across the net despite losing it. Admittedly one of Murray’s serves in the fifth set equaled the speed of his fastest serve in the first set of 130 mph. But then Djokovic, the second best athlete on the tour, was transmuted to look like one of the many thousand spectators in the Arthur Ashe stadium as his leg muscles wreathed in pain and wouldn’t conform to the instructions of the command center in his brain.)

Tuesday after noon talking to reporters in the penthouse apartment of the British consul general in New York, Murray recalled one of his conversations with Lendl during the French Open in Paris earlier this year in June.

Lendl: ‘What worries you?’..

Murray: ‘I worry what might happen if I win a major, how my life might change, because I want it to be the same’…

Lendl: ‘I thought the same thing, but all that happens is you get more people congratulating you. You get nicer tables in restaurants. You get to go on all the good golf courses for free.’..

Lendl: ‘It doesn’t change much. You can keep your life exactly the same as you want.’..

All of which may not turn out to be true. Apparently the glory he has brought to his homeland appears to have drawn the curtain on his 2006 fall out with the British public. (Murray’s joking comment in a Daily Mail interview during the football world cup after Scotland failed to qualify that he would support ‘whoever England was playing against’ had created a furore in numerous subsequent media debates.)..

There is already speculation about Murray being voted as the BBC Sports Personality of the Year though the track and road racing cyclist Bradley Wiggins is still ahead of him in polls. More importantly, and perhaps even preposterously, the rumour mill is rife with the possibility of also a knighthood for the Scot!..

Will Kim Sears be able to take it all at once? Only time will tell..