Quiet, genius at work: Roger Federer wins U.S. Open

By a score of 6-2, 7-5, 6-2, Roger Federer waltzed through Scottish upstart Andy Murray on Monday, adding a fifth consecutive U.S. Open to his bulging stack of Grand Slam titles, now numbering 13.

The score pretty well tells the story of this match, a final played a day late because rain Saturday had briefly halted play and set the schedule back. Federer dominated, sputtered for a moment, and laid down the hammer at the end.

In hindsight, perhaps we should have known this was coming. After his upset win over Rafael Nadal, Murray brought to Arthur Ashe Stadium fine talent and no Grand Slam final experience. Federer brought genius talent and great experience.

"I know what it takes to win here," Federer said, once the 1-hour 51-minute throttling was done. "I know that usually I play my best on big occasions, especially here in New York. . . . I knew it was always going to be tough on Andy."

Perhaps it was because the guy on the other side of the net was not named Nadal, perhaps because he simply feels great comfort playing at Flushing Meadows. But for some reason Federer looked different here than he had in his tough losses at the French Open and Wimbledon. He appeared looser and more at ease as he warmed up and then toed the baseline to start the match.

As in his dominating semifinal win against Novak Djokovic, the first serve Federer struck foreshadowed the match: It was a fastball ace, down the middle.

They played the first eight games in 27 minutes, with Federer displaying sharp aggression, often hitting from inside the baseline. He hardly made an easy error. He pushed the score to 6-2 by forcing a Murray miss.

When Federer plays like this, he is equal parts bully and Baryshnikov: powerful, fluid, undeniable, beautiful to watch.

Among the eye-popping highlights were driving backhand returns off 128-mph Murray serves and a sky-high lob that looked to be headed for the stands, only to fall in. There were also sprints, drop shots on the dead run and, maybe most of all, booming forehands that forced Murray far behind the baseline almost all match long.

Thankfully, in the second set, Murray made matters a little interesting. He settled in. For a short few games, he jerked the Swiss around the court, as he had done to Nadal in his semifinal win.