Conquering the Wind, Williams Enters Rarefied Air With a 17th Title As it turned out, after 2 hours 45 minutes of raw emotion and territorial tennis, Serena Williams really could play in the wind, just as she has played and prevailed in so many conditions and circumstances through the years. With her 32nd birthday approaching, Williams is in increasingly rare company as the major titles continue to pile up. Although she certainly wobbled in Sunday's United States Open final - the longest recorded women's Open final - and although Victoria Azarenka applied plenty of intense, next-generation pressure, there was ultimately no depriving Williams of another major celebration on a court where she has experienced plenty of disaster to go with her triumphs through the years. This 7-5, 6-7 (6), 6-1 victory gave her a fifth United States Open singles title and a 17th Grand Slam singles title. It also underscored her place atop the women's game. She has had her most focused, consistently successful season, and yet Azarenka had defeated Williams in two of their last three matches. Each arrived in New York with one Grand Slam singles title in 2013. This would be the tiebreaker, and although Williams cracked in the second set - losing a 4-1 lead and twice failing to serve out the match - she, not the ferociously ambitious Azarenka, is now the undisputed player of the year. "I felt almost disappointed with my year, to be honest," Williams said. I felt like, yeah, I won the French Open, but I wasn't happy with my performances in the other two Slams and not even making it to the quarterfinals of one. So I definitely feel a lot better with at least a second Grand Slam under my belt this year. There were other rewards, including prize money of $3.6 million, and a $1 million bonus for winning the United States Open Series, which put her at more than $50 million in career earnings. "I think my dad got me into tennis because of the money, but me being naïve and silly, I never thought about it," she said of her father, Richard Williams, long her primary coach along with her mother, Oracene Price. I just thought I want to win. I wanted to do what Venus does. She now holds a 13-3 edge in her series with Azarenka, the closest she has to a rival in the women's game at the moment. "It's good for Serena that Vika is there at this stage; good for both of them," said Patrick Mouratoglou, Williams's coach. I think the best way to progress is to be pushed by someone. Azarenka has been pushing with increased success and resourcefulness - mixing in drop shots and forays to the net Sunday - but the bottom line is that Williams has won all eight of their Grand Slam matches. When this one ended with a missed return, Williams jumped five times near the baseline and continued to exult after embracing Azarenka at the net. As Williams shouted and grinned and thrust her powerful arms into the air, Azarenka sat in her chair courtside and cried into a towel. "She's a champion," Azarenka said later. And she knows how to repeat that. She knows what it takes to get there. I know that feeling, too, so when two people who want it so bad meet, it's like a clash. Azarenka, a marvelous counterpuncher who spent several years living and training in the United States, also rallied to force a third set in last year's Open final before Williams won in a classic match, 6-2, 2-6, 7-5. This final did not hit as many high notes, but it still produced a memorable soundtrack: shrieks, growls, grunts and audible self-criticism, as well as appreciative roars from the crowd, which was treated to the rare sight of a young woman fully prepared to match Williams's intensity. "What is really interesting is that Vika is not at all intimidated by her opponent," said Sam Sumyk, Azarenka's coach. And that is good because we know Serena is very, very strong but also likes to use intimidation to gain a bit of the edge over her opponents, and it's good to see that doesn't work with Vika. But there was another obstacle involved Sunday: the gusting, swirling wind that was even more of a factor than usual in Arthur Ashe Stadium. "The wind was unbelievable today," Williams said. Both players were repeatedly forced to adjust their ground strokes at the last moment, catch their service tosses and attempt with varying degrees of success to remain calm. "It wasn't pleasant; it wasn't nice," Azarenka said. Skirts were always, you know, lifting up. You had to pull it down all the time. For much of the early going, Azarenka seemed to treat the wind as an ally while Williams treated it as an enemy. "I can't play in this wind," Williams said to her team in the players box in the first set after a game full of off-balance ground strokes. Her first-serve percentage was below 50 percent for much of that opening set, but she stabilized when serving at 4-5, shrugging off double faults and a foot fault (she has quite a history with those in Ashe) as well as a flurry of high-quality two-handed backhands from Azarenka. Williams would end up reeling off five games in a row and taking command of the match, only to surrender it by failing to serve out the match twice in that second set. She faltered at 5-4 and again at 6-5, double-faulting into the net to allow Azarenka the chance to play a tiebreaker, which she proceeded to win. With the match now even, Azarenka could not sustain the quality or, more surprisingly, the urgency. Williams broke her in the fourth and sixth games, and this time she did not crumble when she served for the title at 5-1. She is now just one Grand Slam singles title behind Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, who each have 18 and rank fourth on the career list. "I think she has a real sense of history right now, and she is defining her place in history," Evert said on ESPN after the match. Williams confessed that she had been thinking about No. 17 when she was two points from the match in the second set. "That probably got me a little nervous, and I probably shouldn't have been thinking about that," she said. Evert said that she believed Williams was fully capable of reaching 22 major singles titles, which would tie her with Steffi Graf for second behind Margaret Court's record of 24. But what mattered most Sunday night was this victory. A less resilient champion might have continued to fall apart after collapsing in the second set. Instead, Williams exhaled and willed herself into a more peaceful and less conflicted place: one where neither Azarenka nor the wind, that cursed wind, could knock her down.