Lleyton Hewitt may have come up short in the final, but with that heart, you get the feeling he could succeed in any sport. Mark Dadswell/Getty Images

I'm cleaning out the notebook after a terrific tournament -- "a real cracker," as the Aussies would put it. Here are 50 random asides, trying to incorporate as many of your questions as possible. Next we'll resume our usual format.

1. We began the tournament wondering if a male player could be the first man to win the Grand Slam since Rod Laver. After Marat Safin's poised run in Melbourne, maybe it's still a valid question.

2. Nice to see Serena Williams back, too. She, of course, won her seventh Slam by beating a defeated-looking Lindsay Davenport in the final. Serena beat the fourth, second and first seed to win. Time, once again, for the rest of the field to start quaking in their boots.

3. En route to both of her Australian Open titles, Serena had to stave off match points. This year, she was on her last legs against Maria Sharapova and simply came up with the proverbial goods. The haters will say she was a point from losing. The rest will admire her fight.

4. How about that Russian Revolution?

5. I get the feeling Lleyton Hewitt could chose any sport and, so long as he had that outsized heart, he would succeed. Would you like him guarding you on the perimeter? Breaking up your double play? Covering your receiving route?

6. Hard to know what to make of Davenport, who never found her groove in Australia. You'd think if winning Slams would stave off retirement, she wouldn't go so quietly into the night.

7. Can we just call the Safin-Roger Federer semifinal the best match of 2005 and get on with our lives?

8. Obviously, it was a disappointing result for Federer, but here's food for thought: He far from his best against the second-most talented player in tennis. And he came within a point -- literally within inches -- of winning. Also, here's some testament to Federer's elite status: He loses 9-7 in the fifth set to the mountainously talented Safin and the headlines tell us he is "stunned in a huge upset."

9. I had a fair number of you guys backing me on the plea to eliminate five-setters. Then Hewitt beat David Nalbandian, and Safin beat Federer 9-7 in the fifth set of perhaps the best match I've ever seen. By late last week, the vigorous defenses of best-of-five starting rolling in, and I have to admit, I stopped to reconsider my stance. Pam Cheney of Thompson, Conn., wrote: "Maybe a compromise can be reached. Save five sets for the second week of a slam." That works for me. You eliminate the first week tedium, the problematic scheduling and, most importantly, the needless wear-and-tear on the players. But you still keep alive the potential for late-round classics. You guys willing to meet halfway?

10. Kevin Ullyett and Wayne Black won the men's doubles and their second major, beating Bob and Mike Bryan in the final.

11. Believe the hype. At the tender age of 15, Donald Young won the boys title. It's silly to make long-range projections about a kid who still has so much physical growth ahead of him. But it's sure worth keeping an eye on his progress.

12. On the other hand, only three Americans were in the girls singles draw and none made it beyond the second round. If I work for the USTA, this troubles me. In the girls draw, Belarus' Victoria Azarenka beat Agnes Szavay of Hungary in the final.