Williams crowned; Murray shocks Nadal

NEW YORK — Serena Williams flung her racket aside and jumped for joy, looking like someone who had just won her first Grand Slam title.

Nope. It sure had been a while, though.

Displaying the talent and tenacity that helped her dominate tennis earlier in the decade, Williams outlasted Jelena Jankovic, 6-4, 7-5, on Sunday night in a thrill-a-minute match chock full of marvelous strokes and momentum swings to win her third U.S. Open championship and ninth Grand Slam title.

Four times a single point from heading to a third set, Williams was simply relentless. She took the final four games.

It was Williams' first triumph at Flushing Meadows since 2002, and it guaranteed that the American will lead the rankings today for the first time since August 2003 — the longest gap between stints at No. 1 for a woman.

Jankovic was in that spot for one week last month and would have returned there by winning a title match that was postponed from Saturday night because of Tropical Storm Hanna.

As good as the second-seeded Jankovic is at retrieving balls and extending points, Williams can do that with the best of them, too, leading to point after point lasting more than a dozen shots as both women scurried around Arthur Ashe Stadium, their sneakers squeaking loudly.

Both sent close-range shots directly at the other.

But the difference in strength was clear: Repeatedly after those lengthy exchanges, Jankovic was left shaking her racket hand, trying to lessen the sting.

On the match's very first point, Williams drove a backhand winner with such force, such ferocity, that she sent one of her earrings flying.

Meanwhile, in the men's semifinals, no one ever seems to run Rafael Nadal ragged, and yet Andy Murray did just that in the U.S. Open semifinals.

Murray finished a stunning, rain-interrupted 6-2, 7-6 (5), 4-6, 6-4 victory to reach his first Grand Slam final and stop the No. 1-ranked Nadal's 19-match winning streak at major tournaments.

Trying to become the first British man to win a major tennis championship since Fred Perry at the 1936 U.S. Open, Murray will face four-time defending champion Roger Federer in the final today (5 p.m., WCSC-TV).

"He's got loads of experience in these situations," Murray said, "and it's something new to me."

The sixth-seeded Murray won the first two sets against Nadal and was down a break at 3-2 in the third in Louis Armstrong Stadium when play was suspended Saturday because of Tropical Storm Hanna. As should surprise no one, the generally indefatigable Nadal made a stand Sunday, when they resumed things in Arthur Ashe Stadium, taking the third set and going ahead 3-1 in the fourth.

"It was almost slipping away," Murray said. But he took five of the last six games, breaking Nadal twice and ending the Spaniard's bid to make his first final at the U.S. Open.

In the women's doubles championship, Cara Black of Zimbabwe and Liezel Huber of the United States beat Lisa Raymond of the U.S. and Samantha Stosur of Australia 6-3, 7-6 (6).