Back to winning ways

It's good to see him winning again. Especially after he had such an unlucky year, losing the Australian Open in the semifinals, then trashed by Nadal in the French Open finals, and again losing to Nadal in that epic Wimbledon finals.

He finally got it right in the US Open. Seeded second for the first time in four and a half years, Roger Federer finally won his first major title of the year. And in doing so, he became the first man to win five Slams in a row at two different events, having also completed the feat last year at Wimbledon. No one had won five US titles in a row since Bill Tilden in 1924.

Federer dispatched sixth-seeded Andy Murray, the conquerer of the world's number one Rafael Nadal in the semifinals, 6-2 7-5 6-2. Murray went into his first Grand Slam final with a 2-1 lifetime record against the champ. But trying to become the first British man to win the US Open since Fred Perry in 1936, he never had a chance. He might have played the perfect game in his win against Nadal, but against Federer, he was out of sorts.

Federer hit 36 winners compared to Murray's 16 and he earned nearly half his points at net, a skill he honed while winning the Olympic gold medal in doubles. He only took one hour and 51 minutes to finish the match, which in fact was one of the easiest match he had on his way to winning the title.

In the semifinals, he beat Novak Djokovic 6-3 5-7 7-5 6-2 in nearly 3 hours, and had to rely on his strong servis game to hold onto his serve. He mustered 20 aces along the way, while limiting his errors to 28 compared to Djokovic's 47 errors.

The quarterfinals was also a close game, with Federer beating Gilles Muller 7-6 6-4 7-6 in two hours and 30 minutes. Muller, the big server from Luxembourg led the tournament with 128 aces but Federer managed on to win the match by limiting his errors.

He had his toughest match in the Fourth Round, where he needed three and a half hours to beat Igor Andreev from Russia in five sets, 6-7 7-6 6-3 3-6 6-3. It was a tense match where Federer had an error strewn game, committing 60 unforced errors but he made that up by hitting 66 winners to claim the match.

Federer's 56th career crown moved him into sole possession of second place on the all-time Slam title list, one more than Roy Emerson and one below the career record 14 won by Pete Sampras. Up next will be the Australian Open for him to equal Sampras 14 amazing feat. It won't be easy, but as long as he believes in himself, I'm sure he will be the greatest ever player in the history of tennis.