Djokovic edges Federer in an all-Yokozuna final

For the second time this year, Novak Djokovic faced a fellow Yokozuna (=Grand Champion) in a grand slam final, but this time he had the better end for himself. In an intense, classy and entertaining 5-setter Djokovic defeated Dai-Yokozuna (=great Grand Champion) and living legend Roger Federer - who hence just failed, at an age of almost 33 years, to add an 18th grand slam title to his record.

Djokovic seemed to have won the match in the 4th set when he was up 5-2, but Federer fought back with verve and forced a decider. In the 5th set, both players remained on serve until 5-4 Djokovic, when the Serb tilted the match in his favor for good.

Outlandish as it sounds, but by the extremely high standards that Djokovic had set in 2011/12 - when he won four out of five consecutive slams - his career had stalled a little recently. Between the 2012 Australian Open and this year's Wimbledon tournament, Djokovic had been in six more grand finals and lost five of them; three times against Dai-Yokozuna Rafael Nadal (among them the 2014 French open) and twice against long-standing Ozeki (=Champion) Andy Murray. This 7th grand slam title makes Djokovic move up one notch to #11 in this page's open era ranking; he is also edging closer to Dai-Yokozuna status (three more titles would be needed for this).

Among the Ozeki, Murray and Stanislas Wawrinka both held rank with a quarterfinal participation, losing to Dimitrov and Federer, respectively. By contrast, David Ferrer lost early and goes kadoban - i.e. he has to reach the quarterfinals at the US Open to avoid demotion to Sekiwake.

Encouragingly, Wimbledon 2014 brought more signs of younger players breaking through and challenging the established lot. At Roland Garros, flashy Ernests Gulbis had reached the sanyaku (=championship) ranks for the first time. At Wimbledon, big server Milos Raonic and no less flashy alrounder Grigor Dimitrov followed in Gulbis' path, reaching the first grand slam semifinals of their careers. Raonic gets promoted to Sekiwake (=Junior Champion I, in conjunction with his quarterfinal at the French Open) as a result, and Dimitrov to Komusubi (Junior Champion II). Dimitrov will share the rank with veteran and ex-Ozeki Tomas Berdych, who failed to hold Sekiwake rank.

Going into the 2014 US Open, the mens' sanyaku ranks are as follows:

Men

Career rank 1/	East	Current Rank	West	Career rank 1/
High Sanyaku (Senior Champion Ranks)
Y	Novak Djokovic	Y1	Roger Federer	Dai-Y
Dai-Y	Rafael Nadal	Y2	-	-
O	Andy Murray	O1	Stanislas Wawrinka	O
O	David Ferrer*	O2	-	-
Lower Sanyaku (Junior Champion Ranks)
S	Milos Raonic	S	-	-
O	Tomas Berdych	K	Grigor Dimitrov	K

1/ Highest sanyaku rank achieved in a player's career
*kadoban