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• Serb wins third grand slam title of year • Completes victory 6-2, 6-4, 6-7, 6-1 Novak Djokovic might still be the king of tennis but it took a struggle of epic proportions over four sets at Flushing Meadows to rip Rafael Nadal’s fingers from his remaining crown. The Serb beat him for the sixth time in six finals this year to take the Spaniard’s US Open title in a match of so many highs the lows were rendered irrelevant, a price worth paying for one of the finest finishes to a major in recent times. The sustained quality of the exchanges, in rallies that ran to 30 shots and more, left the 24,712 excitement junkies packed into the Arthur Ashe stadium delirious on a balmy New York Monday night and the combatants drained of the last drop of their genius. It took the world No 1 four hours and 10 minutes to subdue the reigning champion 6-2, 6-4, 6-7, 6-1 on a night when one miracle followed another. It was not just the length of the fight that made it such a compelling sporting occasion but the ability and willingness of both players to come back from impossible positions. Nadal lost his serve 11 times, yet never gave up; Djokovic, battered in the tie-break, took a medical time-out at the start of the fourth set, then immediately broke Nadal, going on to finish a job he had looked like completing maybe two hours earlier. The tournament was introduced by an earthquake, survived a hurricane, was embarrassingly mismanaged as courts and nerves cracked in the second week as the elements returned to mock the organising committee, then was marred by a Serena Williams tantrum on Sunday. But the men’s delayed final restored the championship’s integrity in the most emphatic manner. The crowd responded to the mood. Several times the chair umpire, Carlos Ramos, had to call for quiet from supporters of both players who were shouting either during serve or on critical strokes in a rally. The interruptions seemed to disturb Djokovic more than Nadal. It was an unequivocal statement by Djokovic. There can be no argument that he has the measure of not just Nadal but Roger Federer, the world No3 whom he beat in that remarkable semi-final on Saturday. It was his third slam title of the year, after Melbourne and Wimbledon, and only a magical reincarnation of the old Federer stopped him reaching the final at Roland Garros. Andy Murray was the other player to beat him in a year in which he hit peak after peak, culminating here with another crushing defeat of the world No2. If this were a fight, Nadal would have been punched to a pulp at the end but Djokovic’s knuckles would have been bruised beyond recognition. Djokovic, who has a win-loss record in 2011 of 64-2 with more to come, hit him hard and deep, wide and handsome, then had to take similar punishment in return. There was such ferocity in some of the winner’s ground strokes that Nadal had to reply leaning back and hitting from way behind the baseline. For sustained passages of play he simply could not get into range to hit easy winners. His points were dredged from desperate deaths or scored on his opponent’s errors. Nadal started so well and had the majority of the crowd with him when he broke Djokovic early in each of the first two sets, only to surrender the advantage at once. Stirred, Djokovic retaliated fiercely. But the Mallorcan’s serve let him down at crucial points, dipping to 50% in the second set, when he looked like being blown away. But nobody could doubt Nadal’s fighting heart. On one of the few occasions when he had Djokovic on the back foot, 2-0 up at the start of the second set thanks to six unforced errors by his opponent, he was perfectly placed to extend his lead. Then came the game of the match: a 17-minute duel on Nadal’s serve in which he was dragged into eight deuce points and Djokovic finally broke him on the sixth opportunity. It came at the end of another long, gruelling rally, Nadal, straining backwards in mid-court banging a tired smash into the net. If that was the longest war, there were several other skirmishes nearly as tough. In the fifth game of the third set, having broken back in the previous game, a 27-shot rally at 40-30 up ended in agony for Nadal and another deuce battle. They traded so many quality shots in the exchanges that followed it seemed the game would never end. When it did, the ball flew limply down the tram-lines off Nadal’s racket to give Djokovic yet another glimmer of a kill. They went at it all the way to the final bell and there were tears, inevitably, when the deed was done. The mutual respect between them is palpable and that is something not always evident at the summit of international sport. They did their sport a great service. US Open 2011 Tennis US Open tennis Novak Djokovic Rafael Nadal Kevin Mitchell guardian.co.uk