Victoria Azarenka hailed Serena Williams as the greatest player of all time on Sunday and vowed to learn from suffering a chastening 10th defeat in 11 meetings with the American veteran in the US Open final. Williams captured a fourth title in New York on Sunday to take her career majors total to 15 with a 6-2, 2-6, 7-5 victory, the first women&rsquo;s final to go the distance in 17 years. <img alt="" src="http://images.mid-day.com/2012/sep/vic.jpg" style="width: 400px; height: 386px; " /> Victoria Azarenka reacts after scoring a point against Serena Williams during their final on Sunday. Pics/AFP World number one Azarenka was outplayed in the first set before staging a rousing fightback which saw her serve for the match at 5-4 in the decider before Williams called upon all of her experience and shot-making prowess to pull through. &lsquo;Serena is a champion&rsquo; &ldquo;For me, she&rsquo;s the greatest player of all time. She has taken the game to the next level. She&rsquo;s a great champion,&rdquo; said 23-year-old Azarenka, who was just 10 when Williams won her first US Open as a teenager in 1999. &ldquo;But I have to be positive because I feel like these kind of matches, every time I play Serena, it really pushes me to be better, to improve, to move forward. I have to be thankful to her for that.&rdquo; <img alt="" src="http://images.mid-day.com/2012/sep/champs.jpg" style="width: 400px; height: 267px; " /> Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka pose with their US Open trophies on Sunday Azarenka has only beaten Williams once &mdash; in the 2009 Miami final &mdash; with seven of her defeats coming in the majors. Sunday&rsquo;s match represented her fourth loss to Williams in 2012 alone. &ldquo;She makes me all the time make sure that I&rsquo;m taking my game, my personality, my physical aspect to the next level,&rdquo; said Azarenka. &ldquo;Having few of the players like that in the women&rsquo;s tour is something priceless, something that you cannot take away. It&rsquo;s the people who like Maria (Sharapova), like Petra (Kvitova) those kind of girls, they always push me to be better. Today (Sunday) I was close. I&rsquo;m going to have another opportunity to make something better. That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m looking for.&rdquo;

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World No 1 and US Open runner-up Victoria Azarenka, who stretched Williams in a three-set contest, is not sulking

Serena pushes me to improve: Victoria Azarenka

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Serena pushes me to improve: Victoria Azarenka

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