Liza Minnelli entertains the crowd at Flushing Meadows with a rendition of God Bless America before the men's final

Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic line up with Guillermo Villas (centre) for the coin toss

Maria Sharapova is a surprise guest in Djokovic's players' box, along with a more discreet Robert De Niro (bottom right)

Serve dominates the opening stages of the final as both men hold comfortably to 5-5

It is Djokovic who makes the first breakthrough in game 11, giving him the chance to serve for the set

World number one Federer saves an incredible five set points before breaking back and he then races through the tie-break

Srdjan and Dijana Djokovic cheer on their boy as he gets the first break of serve in the second set

But Federer levels things up again at 4-4 in the second set and it comes down to another tie-break

Djokovic is furious after another couple of set points go begging and he finds himself two sets down

And after he misses three break points in game five of the third set, Djokovic knows the game is nearly up

Federer breaks serve to seal a 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-2) 6-4 victory and a fourth consecutive title at Flushing Meadows

Federer looks on as New York's new favourite Djokovic takes the applause of the crowd

Federer takes his record against Djokovic to 3-1 and, more importantly, parades his 12th Grand Slam title

Earlier, France's Nathalie Dechy and Russia's Dinara Safina celebrate taking the women's doubles title with a 6-4 6-2 win over Taiwan's Chan Yung-Jan and Chuang Chia-Jung

Chan Yung-Jan and Chuang Chia-Jung receive their second runners-up prize of the year after losing in the Australian Open final in January