Murray third in rankings after Open win

LONDON, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- Andy Murray picked up his first Grand Slam title at the U.S. Open and passed Rafael Nadal for No. 3 in the world rankings at the same time.

Murray defeated Novak Djokovic 7-6 (12-10), 7-5, 2-6, 3-6, 6-2 in Monday's U.S. Open championship match. It was Murray's first win in a major tournament final in five tries. It also comes in the heels of his gold-medal performance at the Olympics and a finals loss to Roger Federer at Wimbledon.

That strong run boosts Murray to third in the world rankings, pushing Nadal, who missed the U.S. Open because of a knee problem, to fourth.

The only other change in the men's tennis Top 10 after the year's final major tournament saw Tomas Berdych, who defeated Federer in the quarterfinals but lost to Murray in the semis, inch to No. 6, matching his career high. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is knocked to No. 7 by Berdych's move up.

Federer remains No. 1 in the world with 11,805 ranking points. Djokovic is second at 10,470 followed by Murray (8,570) and Nadal (7,515). Those four are the first to qualify for the eight-player Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.

David Ferrer, who fell to Djokovic in the U.S. Open semifinals, remains ranked fifth with 5,915 points. Berdych has 4,830 points and Tsonga comes in with 4,520. Juan Martin del Potro (3,890) is ranked eighth with Janko Tipsarevic (3,285) and John Isner (2,610) completing the Top 10.

There is no ATP tournament this week due to the Davis Cup semifinals. The United States heads to Spain and the Czech Republic plays in Argentina in this weekend's best-of-five semifinals.