Novak Djokovic hit passing shots and looping lobs with equal perfection to overwhelm Andy Murray 6-4, 6-2, 6-3 Sunday, winning his second Australian Open title and extending Britain’s near 75-year drought in men’s Grand Slam singles. Djokovic’s 2008 Australian title is his other Grand Slam victory.

It was another Scottish day for Andy Murray. The lanky 23-year-old has joked that when he’s on a winning streak he is adopted as British in the United Kingdom of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales but when he’s losing he’s more likely to be called a Scot, the nation of his birth.

Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia and Canada’s Daniel Nestor won the Australian Open mixed doubles title Sunday in their first — and potentially last — time playing together. The second-seeded pair beat Chan Yung-jan of Taiwan and Australia’s Paul Hanley 6-3, 3-6, 10-7. “There were a lot of tight points there at the end, we were fortunate to win,” Nestor said during the trophy…

American twins Bob and Mike Bryan won their fifth Australian Open doubles title and 10th Grand Slam championship, beating India’s Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi 6-3, 6-4 on Saturday. The Bryans have held the No. 1 ranking in doubles for the past eight years. They have also won the U.S Open three times and the French Open and Wimbledon once.

Former Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic will make a one-time return to ATP competition to play doubles at the Zagreb Indoors. The 39-year-old Ivanisevic said Saturday he will partner Croatia’s top-ranked player Marin Cilic in the tournament starting on Monday. Ivanisevic won Wimbledon in 2001 and retired in 2004 Wimbledon.

How good was Novak Djokovic‘s defense in the Australian Open final? This 39-shot rally sums it up:

No wonder Andy Murray got frustrated. So many times during the match it looked like he was on the verge of winning points, but Djokovic’s defense kept him in points and quickly turned them around. He was defensively offensive.

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Has the "big two" become the "big three?"

With a sublime performance in the Australian Open final, Novak Djokovic joined Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal as the only top-ranked male players with multiple majors. The 23-year-old Serb cruised past Andy Murray, 6-4, 6-2, 6-3 on Sunday night in Melbourne with a deft display of shot making, a dominating defensive performance and a blend of patience and guts that took him to another straight-set victory over a top opponent. In doing so, Djokovic establishes himself as perhaps the premier hard court player in the game.

For as good as Djokovic was in the final (he was much better against Federer three days earlier), his counterpart, Murray, was just as disappointing. With the hopes of Great Britain on his shoulders, the Scotsman crumbled under the pressure of a Grand Slam final yet again. It’s one thing to lose to get worked by Roger Federer twice, but to lose in such a decisive fashion to his contemporary, Djokovic, on a favorable court in a major far, far away from London is a whole other.

That’s not to take anything away from Djokovic. With the way he was playing, Murray would have had a tough time winning even if he brought his "A" game. He barely put up a fight though. Once Nole broke to start the second set, all you had to do was look at Murray’s body language to figure out that he wasn’t much longer for the match.

Murray isn’t going anywhere. He has far too much talent for that. But any lingering doubts he had about his ability to compete under pressure were exacerbated Sunday in Melbourne. He’s a different player when the glare of the spotlight shines directly on him. Before he could delude himself into thinking that it was his inexperience in Slams or his legendary opponent. Neither of those excuses work anymore.

All isn’t lost though. A few years back another player was routinely knocked for not showing up on the biggest stage. Four Grand Slams later, Kim Clijsters is doing pretty good for herself.

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The classic Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal final has been replaced by what might become one of the future classics of the Grand Slams finals: Andy Murray-Novak Djokovic. Both being ambitious, 23-year-olds, they’re among the players who never got discouraged by the outstanding domination of Roger and Rafa. Yes, sometimes it was getting tough on them. They’ve suffered and even got depressed, like in 2010 when Murray failed in Australia, the second time that had happened in a Grand Slam final against Federer. But they’ve been improving and improving again. They’re still on the rise. They know they’re able to make their way here despite the dominance of the sport’s two giants.

This final is very open. If Murray happens to win it, he’d finally win his first major title. This victory could set him free and help him to make his career enter a new dimension. The Scotsman owns a very unique talent but he’s still playing in the shadow of Rafa and Fed. This extra confidence given by this first title could give a new face to his career. Concerning the Serbian, he’s already giving a new rise to his journey since the second half of 2010 with the US Open semifinal, where he won against Roger Federer, a nice indoor season and, more important, the Davis Cup triumph where Nole was decisive.

Djokovic and Murray have a lot of common points. They’re friends, having known each other for many years and often training together. They’re both born in 1987, so they’ve regularly faced each other in the youth tournaments, like in the Petits As final in Tarbes. Their game style is quite similar in the way that they’re both counter punchers. They’re both really efficient in longer points, but they also know how to shorten them when an opportunity is coming. Their serve is great and they’re among the best in the world when it comes to returning. They’ve built a really high fitness level and can defend their ground like no one else.

The Serbian has the edge over the Scotsman on a few different levels. Physically, I think he’s even fitter because his body is perfectly suited for this sport. He’s slender, explosive and very flexible. If the match goes on and reaches five sets, I’ll give an advantage to the Serbian, even with the heat. I think he’ll be able to stay fresher if it happens. Andy, despite a top-level training, is heavier and more muscular. We should get lots of long rallies in this match and physical abilities will be crucial.

Nole is having now the best time of his career, he comes into this after his Davis Cup victory, which brought him an amazing confidence. He feels very strong, maybe stronger than ever. I’ve always been strike by his determination. He believes in his abilities, he’s claiming his ambition and nothing can stop his will. I’m convinced since several years now that he’ll become the No. 1 player in the world as soon as both champions in front of him will slow down a bit and so leave him some space. He’s going to be very tough to beat, as he’s so eager to win.

Undoubtedly, in my opinion, the Scotsman is taking the edge when the overall game level is concerned. I find Andy amazingly gifted, able to display some shots and sequences that he’s the only one to master. He can play some magical tennis and it can give him an advantage because it helps to turn a match. At any given moment, he’s able to change the story with four outstanding shots. Furthermore, his game owns more variation. He can hurt his opponent at any time on a single shot; he can speed up the game like no one, especially on his backhand. Andy is probably better that Novak on his serve. The Scotsman struggles sometimes with his timing on this shot and it leads to his first serve percentage falling because his serve toss is too far ahead of his body. But this shot is crushing with Andy and often helps him to be saved from tough times.

Andy will be very focused on his serve. He knows he has to put a lot of first serves in. Both players will try to turn around their backhand after their first serve in order to win the point in two shots. Get over it quicker and it’s better for them. We should get a great backhand battle, this shot being their favourite. But Novak shouldn’t stay too long in this diagonal. I think Andy is better than him in this. He will have to open the game to use his forehand, with which he can speed up and end the points quicker. Andy will have to be wary, because when Nole will open the game, the Scotsman will have just one chance to strike. Djokovic will go for the Scotsman’s forehand, because Andy is sometimes not that comfortable on that side. Murray will try to stick Novak on his backhand in order to display his famous backhand down the line. If both players can keep their serve, they’ll be offensive on each other’s second serve and will use each given chance to put the pressure on.

Guys, have a good match.

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Andy Murray came out of his service stance and stared up at the retractable roof, where a bird was squawking. It kept squawking. He banged his strings off his palm, unhappy with the tension, and sent a couple of defective racquets off to be restrung. A few points after picking up a new frame, he was banging that one against his palm, too. Murray yelled at his player’s box to give him more energy. He barked at the ball kids to bring him his towel, please. He winced after dozens of shots, either in anguish or in pain. Even the chair umpire had it in for him. When Murray questioned why an obvious out call hadn’t been made, he said that umpire Jake Garner “bit back” at him. It was that kind of night.

More important, of course, were the bites that Novak Djokovic took out of Murray. I had expected the Serb to come out firing, the way he had against Roger Federer—why change a winning game; more precisely, why change that winning game. But he started easily, feeling the match out, trying a little of Murray’s style before he got around to his own. I thought it was a mistake; I though he was showing too much respect for Murray’s defense. I was wrong.

The measured game turned out to be the right game for Djokovic. It settled him in and allowed him to  open up and find his range at his own pace. The shift was subtle, but before you knew it, he was controlling points without taking a lot of risk. He broke it open at 5-4, 15-30. Over the course of a 39-shot rally, Djokovic gave us offense, then defense, then offense, then defense, then O, then D, and on, and on, until he’d won the point and changed the entire match in the process.

“That made a big difference in the momentum,” Murray said. “He really loosened up after that.”

“I was changing the pace, changing the rhythm,” Djokovic said. “I didn’t want to give him the same pace. I wanted to open up the court more and not let him control the points.”

Djokovic loosened up in a big way in the second. There was a Federer-esque, full-flight quality to his performance through the first five games of that set. It was no fluke, either; it was the logical end to two weeks, and two months, of excellent play. In fact, now that I write that, there were also moments over his last three matches when I was reminded of the single-minded, well-regulated aggression that he had brought to the Davis Cup final last December. Somebody on this blog called Djokovic’s form at the Hopman Cup a few weeks ago “ominous.” I had never associated that word with the happy Perth exo before, but he or she was right. He was ominous right up until the final point tonight.

“After we won the Davis Cup,” Djokovic said, “I was feeling great being on the court. I think that had a big effect on this tournament for me.”

What effect did Murray’s injury from Friday have on him? He strained a quad in his semifinal, and as he said tonight he wasn’t moving well. There were moments when he clearly pulled up lame, and other moments when he grimaced—though he’s always kind of grimacing out there. Murray said he wasn’t hurt, but maybe a little weary from his last match. Either way, he began the match tight, went straight to agitated, and by the third was pretty well slumped. He played his usual game to a fault. Weary or injured or neither, he failed to change the points’ dynamics, failed to move forward on numerous occasions when he had the chance, and failed to relax at any point and just compete. And there’s always his fundamental issue: a forehand that’s not as powerful or as versatile as most of his opponents’, including Djokovic’s. The Serb can do anything from anywhere with his forehand; Murray can’t. A Slam will likely always elude him unless he can get more out of that stroke.

Of course, whatever you do on your side, you still have to get the ball past Djokovic, which no one in Melbourne found a way to do very often.

“He put up three or four lobs,” Murray said, “that landed right on the line. It’s tough to do anything with those.” On the third of those lobs, Murray looked back down at the line in annoyed disbelief after the point. “How can he put it there?” he seemed to be asking. After the match, Murray was glum, naturally, but he said he felt a lot better than he had after his defeat by Roger Federer last year. Murray claimed that he wasn’t sure why this was, but before the match tonight, he said that in 2010 he had been especially crushed by the squandered set points in the third-set tiebreaker. He never got that far this time. Let’s hope he recovers more quickly than last year.

This match did not signal anything so extreme as a changing of the guard. But it was perhaps the first Grand Slam final contested by the players who came up in the so-far-unnamed “slow-court era.” The combination of modern frames, modern strings, modern physicality, and modern slow courts have produced a distinct style, which Djokovic and Murray both embody. It’s a style of moderation, one that works on all surfaces. It revolves around two-handed backhands that serve as weapons; strong returns and versatile, rather than blistering, serves; a blend of offense and defense; an ability to change the direction of the ball at any time; a basic competence in all aspects of the sport rather than the reliance on a couple of huge weapons; and an emphasis on speed above else.

Every style has its virtuoso performers, and tonight Djokovic showed us that the slow-court game, at its best, can be as dazzling and beautiful as any other. To see it with Djokovic, though, you have to isolate on him. Watch him move. Watch him dance and leap back there—he can play D, then O, then D, then O. His legs look rubbery when he comes down in a split step. He flies low at all times, and he doesn’t have to turn his body away from the net to get a good cut. Where other players’ show-off moves are their bomb serves or their inside-out forehands, The Serb’s is the open-stance, abbreviated-swing, sliding backhand get in the corner. It’s worth a look.

If Djokovic can track down another player’s best shot with that move and flip a lob into the rafters that lands like a laser on the baseline, there’s only one word for it. Andy Murray knew it early tonight. The rest of the men’s tour might be thinking it right now. That’s ominous.

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About midway through the second set of the Australian Open final, I had a thought no doubt shared by many of you: “I set my alarm clock to 3:15 am for…this?”

It was ugly. Andy Murray started weak and just got worse in his third Grand Slam final, especially when you consider the magnitude of the opportunity; this time it wasn’t Roger Federer but Novak Djokovic across the net. Not everyone expected Murray to win, not the way Djokovic has been pounding opponents into oblivion. But everyone expected Murray to fight, compete, contend—to work some of his patented, defensive, anti-tennis magic. It was not to be; Murray yielded a pro-forma break at 4-5 in the first set, while he was still playing a solid if not superior game based on defense and quick counter-thrusts. But once Djokovic won the set, almost all resistance vanished. The theme throughout the United Kingdom tomorrow will be, “Murray has issues…” Judging by his evening’s work, those issues could be technical, oedipal, mental, physical, emotional. Or who knows what else?

This is too bad, because Murray’s lethargic, dispassionate, cranky performance was so striking that it obscured the paramount fact and distinction of the match—Djokovic’s excellence. Even if Murray had been at his best, full of energy and guile, Djokovic would have been extremely tough to beat. For on this night the No. 3 seed from Serbia, who’s had to wait for 12 majors to lock up his second Grand Slam title, relied on a beautifully modulated and precisely calibrated game. He played offense early on, taking the game to Murray and then, as the frustration of the No. 5 seed became manifest, he fell back on defense with an edge—the edge being his eagerness as well as willingness to pounce on any opportunity to attack. Djokovic was at his best, making the transition from solid defense and great court coverage to offense in the blink of an eye. The most surprising thing about the straight-sets win was that Murray was unable to drag Djokovic’s game down and thereby rob him of some well-earned praise.

It doesn’t make much sense to get into the blow-by-blow; this one was over after the first set. But here are some relevant stats: Murray made 47 unforced errors (more than double his 21 winners) and, serving a mediocre 53 percent, he won just 31 percent of his second-serve points, a tribute to Djokovic’s return proficiency and aggression.

Djokovic, by contrast, converted nearly 70 percent of his first serves and won 60 percent of his second serve points.  It wasn’t as much a case of Murray returning poorly as of Djokovic stepping into those returns to take the initiative.

Murray has now played three major finals against two different opponents, and he hasn’t even won a set in any of them. Djokovic has won two majors (both in Melbourne), and has dropped just one total set in his two finals (to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga). Djokovic has reached out to grab his opportunities, but once again tonight Murray looked as if he were waiting around for opportunities to reach out and grab him.

—Pete Bodo

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