Federer Wins 12th Grand Slam Title

World No. 1 tennis player Roger Federer won his 12th Grand Slam title on Sunday after beating Serbia young hope Novak Djokovic 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-2) and 6-4 in the men's single final of the 2007 US Open.

With this victory the Swiss became the first man in the Open Era to capture four consecutive US Open singles titles, and the first man in history to do so since Bill Tilden accomplished the feat in the early 20’. Still in first place in front of the all-time greats is Pete Sampras with his astonishing 14 major singles titles.

"I think about it a lot now. To come so close at my age is fantastic, and I hope to break it," said Federer.

Federer also broke another tennis record, his one, after beating Nikolay Davydenko of Russia to accede in the 10 consecutive Grand Slam final. He is also the first man to reach all four Grand Slam finals in a calendar year for two years in a row.

Djokovic, the youngest man in the last 17 years to make it into the final of the year's last Grand Slam, failed to convert seven set points in the first two sets. Federer went on to clinch a fourth.

“I made a lot of first- shot unforced errors. I was mentally weaker on the important points.'' Djokovic said at the National Tennis Center in New York after the final.

Serving with a 6-5 lead at 40-0 in the first set, Djokovic had five unforced errors and a double fault. Federer took the set in a tiebreaker and with it the decisive advantage as from then on the statistics and history were on his side: the previous 14 men who had won the first set took the U.S. Open.