World number-one men's tennis player Rafael Nadal of Spain has won his first U.S. Open title and the ninth Grand Slam tournament of his career. Nadal defeated Novak Djokovic of Serbia, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 Monday in New York.
Rafael Nadal has had an exceptional year, taking over the men's number-one ranking from Switzerland's Roger Federer and winning the last three of the four Grand Slam events in 2010.
The 24-year-old says he is extremely happy to finally win the U.S. Open.
"Yeah, it was an amazing feeling to win against Novak. He is always very, very difficult and the results say that," he says, "The last three times I lost against him. I think for the first time in my career I played a very, very good match at this tournament."
Nadal won the French Open and Wimbledon earlier this year. With his win in New York Monday, the Spaniard becomes just the seventh men's player to win all four Grand Slam tournaments in his career, after capturing the Australian Open in 2009. He says winning the career Grand Slam is a dream come true.
"For me it is a dream to have the career Grand Slam, but this is more dream to have the U.S. Open. Some moments it is an unbelievable feeling because I wanted it a lot all my life, in all my difficult moments to be here. But I never imagined to have the four Grand Slams," Nadal said.
The third-seeded Djokovic had won his three prior matches against Rafael Nadal, all on hard courts, but has still never defeated Nadal in a final or at a Grand Slam event. Djokovic says Nadal deserved to win because he was better when it counted most.
"This is one of the matches where the opponent plays better than you and you just have to congratulate him and tell him 'You are better.' That is it. I do not think I played a bad match overall," Djokovic said. "It was a very good performance from my side. But whenever it was important, he was the one who was playing just too good."
The match was originally scheduled for Sunday, but was delayed after several hours of rain soaked the U.S. Open tennis courts. The two players endured another two-hour rain delay during the second set Monday.
