Nadal finishes career Grand Slam

~ The Spaniard beat Novak Djokovic in the rain-delayed final of the U.S. Open

NEW YORK -- The list was long. Everyone, even Rafael Nadal himself, tried to explain why he kept leaving the U.S. Open without a trophy, why it was the only Grand Slam tournament he hadn't conquered.

His grinding style exhausts him. The wind plays havoc with his spin-lathered strokes. The courts are too hard and too fast. The balls are too soft. And so on.

Two marvelous, nearly perfect weeks -- and one victory in a thrilling final -- make that all sound rather silly.

Nadal won his first U.S. Open title to complete a career Grand Slam, beating Novak Djokovic 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 on Monday in a match filled with fantastic shotmaking by both men and interrupted by a thunderstorm a day after it was postponed by rain.

Rafael Nadal holds the championship trophy Monday after defeating Novak Djokovic in four sets to win the U.S. Open in New York. (Charles Krupa ~ Associated Press)

It's Nadal's third consecutive major championship and ninth overall.

He is the seventh man in tennis history with at least one title from each Grand Slam tournament.

Rain pushed the men's final from Sunday to Monday for the third consecutive year, and play was interrupted for nearly two hours during the second set. When they resumed, Djokovic took that set, the only one Nadal lost in the tournament. But the No. 1-ranked Spaniard quickly went ahead in the third set and, really, that was that.

"He took it away," Djokovic said, "and he never gave me a chance to go back."

Once seen as Roger Federer's nemesis, the 24-year-old Nadal now has made his own greatness quite clear.

"He has the capabilities already now to become the best player ever," Djokovic said. "I think he's playing the best tennis that I've ever seen him play on hard courts. He has improved his serve drastically -- the speed, the accuracy. And, of course, his baseline [game] is as good as ever."

Nadal stretched his Grand Slam winning streak to 21 matches by adding the U.S. Open to his titles at the French Open in June, then Wimbledon in July. No man had won those three tournaments in the same year since Rod Laver won a true Grand Slam in 1969. Now Nadal heads to the Australian Open in January with a chance to claim a Rafa Slam of four consecutive major championships -- something that also hasn't been done since Laver.

No. 3 Djokovic, the 2008 Australian Open champion and 2007 U.S. Open runner-up, made Nadal earn it. The Serb played superbly for long stretches, showing off the terrific returning, retrieving and big forehand he used to knock off 16-time Grand Slam champion Federer in Saturday's semifinals.

Djokovic claimed the second set by breaking Nadal in the final game.

It would be the only set lost of 22 played by Nadal in New York this year, as he came oh-so-close to being the first man in a half-century to win this tournament without dropping a set.

Nadal was back to his relentless best in the third and fourth, hitting shots so well that Djokovic was moved to applaud on occasion.