ESPN 2008 US Open

NEW YORK -- Roger Federer and his media minions have been getting a lot of mileage out of the redemption angle at this year's U.S. Open.

He hasn't won a Grand Slam title this year, and after holding the No. 1 ranking for 237 consecutive weeks, it has belonged to Rafael Nadal for three weeks and counting now.

Federer, who has generated an enormous amount of sympathy, will play for his fifth straight U.S. Open title on Monday night.

For a truer measure of redemption, consider instead Serena Williams. Coming into Sunday night's final, she had not won the championship here in six years, nor been the No. 1-ranked woman in more than five.

When it was over, after Williams had finally put down Jelena Jankovic 6-4, 7-5 late Sunday night in one of the finest women's finals here in many years, she flung her racket skyward, shrieked repeatedly and started pogo-sticking around the court -- sproing, sproing, sproing -- like a child.

"I'm sorry I'm so excited," Serena said, almost convincingly, as she reached across the net to Jankovic.

After her quarterfinal victory over sister Venus, Serena said, "Honestly, I really would just like to win the tournament, with or without the ranking. Believe me, I'm going to be No. 1 sooner or later."

How about sooner?

She was in the middle of her Serena Slam, tearing up tennis -- she was No. 1 for 57 consecutive weeks -- when injuries and outside interests intervened.

"Things happen -- life happened," Venus said earlier in the tournament. "You can't always predict it. The best part is we're still here, going stronger that ever."

Five years and one month after she lost the No. 1 ranking to Kim Clijsters in August 2003, Serena is No. 1 again. That's the longest period between berths at the top by any player since the current ranking system was instituted in the middle 1970s. Andre Agassi (3 years, 5 months) and Jimmy Connors (3 years, 2 months) are second and third on that impressive all-time list.

"I always try to do something different," said Serena, a month shy of her 27th birthday. "I've been down in the dumps, the gutter, so long. This is so cool."

Five years in the career of a professional athlete is an eternity -- particularly in tennis, where the shelf life of champions is usually fleeting. This might explain the cathartic release we saw from Serena at the end of the title match.

"I don't even remember match point," she said. "I'm so excited, I can't even describe it. It's been so long, it's kind of weird.

"It was magical, everything coming together."

While her father, Richard, conjectured that this title might mean the most to her, Serena declined to confirm this, saying all her titles are special.

Jankovic, who has struggled with injuries for most of the year, was philosophical.

"Serena was a little bit better on the important points," she said. "I had some unlucky points, but I should have won them. I let my opportunities slip away."

How focused was Serena on winning? She faced a total of 14 set points in her matches against Jankovic and sister Venus -- and didn't lose one. Afterward, Serena revealed that Venus, who watched from the family box, helped her with a game plan for her past two matches.

Jankovic said she believed Serena was tiring in the second set and taking too much time between points. She complained to the chair umpire but received no satisfaction. In the end, Jankovic's failure to convert one of those four set points -- one of them on a double fault -- might have cost her the match.

"I gave her a lot of gifts when it was crucial," Jankovic said.

While it was Serena's 12th Grand Slam final, it was the very first for the 23-year-old Jankovic. She, too, was playing for the No. 1 ranking after a recent one-week stay at the top. Heading into the match, Jankovic played the power card, sounding a lot like Justine Henin.

"Overall, she's, I think, the strongest player on tour, together with her sister," Jankovic said. "Nobody has the power that they have. We cannot compare.

"If you really want to win, you really have to go for every shot and really have to run a lot."

In six previous head-to-head matches, which they had split 3-all, Jankovic managed to blunt that power with her extraordinary retrieving ability. Her side-to-side quickness kept her in points, and in a long rally she was a patient counterpuncher waiting for an appropriate opening.

Serena has enormous groundstrokes from both sides, but it was her patience that allowed her to advance past sister Venus and then Dinara Safina in the semifinals.

And that's how it played out.

A seven-minute battle in the first game featured three deuces, moving venerable scribe Bud Collins to note, "This is pretty good stuff."

Williams broke Jankovic in the match's sixth game with a superb forehand, deep and down the line. Two unforced errors created a love-30 hole, but Williams visibly raised her game, serving a 112 mph serve and a monster 120 mph offering that was unreturnable. Coming to net, as she so often did, Serena knocked off a forehand volley to take a 5-2 lead. After Jankovic held and broke back, she seemed poised to draw even at 5-all, but dropped the set when she couldn't handle Williams' deep forehand and banged it long.

This was an ominous turn of events for the Serb. In 17 of the previous 18 U.S. Open finals, the woman who won the first set had gone on to win the match.

Using her power, then moving forward when she sensed a tolerable advantage, Serena won an extraordinary 28 of 34 points at the net.

The second set produced an even higher level of tennis. Jankovic was serving for the second set at 5-4, but a majestic four-deuce game ended on Serena's sixth break point. A forehand pass down the line hit the ground before it hit Jankovic's racket, and Serena was back on serve.

At this point, the sellout crowd's desire for a third set overcame its sense of nationalism. After another sprint to net and a ridiculous backhand stab volley on game point, Serena turned to her box and slowly, deliberately flexed every muscle she had -- a remarkable show of speed, grace and, ultimately, force.

She has gone through a lot -- a left knee injury that never seemed to heal, shoulder and ankle injuries, thumb ligaments that were stretched out of shape and slow to mend. In 2004, she failed to win a major title, and two years later her best Grand Slam result was a fourth-round finish here at the National Tennis Center. Serena's year-end ranking in 2006 was a laughable No. 95.

Unless you were Serena Williams.

And now, she's back, happy and healthy again. With this victory, the Williams sisters have won two or more major titles in seven of the decade's nine years. With one year to go in the decade, the score is:

Williams sisters 15, everyone else (nine different players) 21.

Serena and Venus, the reigning Wimbledon champion, won nine of 16 Grand Slams from 2000 to 2003. But even at the height of their glory, they never, ever followed each other as Grand Slam champions as they have now.

Serena could not have been thrilled as first Clijsters, then Henin, Amelie Mauresmo, Lindsay Davenport and Maria Sharapova took the No. 1 spot. And now it's hers -- again.

This was Serena's ninth Grand Slam singles title -- putting her seventh on the all-time women's list -- and afterward, well past 1 a.m., she was talking about how hard she worked, sometimes waking up at 6 in the morning only to find it was too dark to practice. She talked about wanting to push her major total into double digits.

"It doesn't stop here," Serena said. "I feel like I have a new career. I feel so young. I feel like there's so much more I can do yet."

Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com.