Nadal completes career slam

Rafael Nadal won his first US Open title to complete a career Grand Slam, beating Novak Djokovic 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 Monday in a match interrupted by a thunderstorm a day after it was postponed by rain.

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.

"I think for the first time in my career I played a very, very good match in this tournament," Nadal said. "That's my feeling. I played my best match in the U.S. Open out there at the most important moment."

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 took a lead in the third set and never let it go.

"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.