It was a weekend for champions. A weekend when sport’s pre-eminent practitioners strutted their stuff, did their thing and reminded us all why they’re the first-raters in their field. Not just top dogs but best in show.

Roger Federer won his fourth straight US Open this morning, and 12th Grand Slam title overall, overcoming Novak Djokovic in straight sets. Though pushed hard by the young Serb, tennis’ great emerging talent, Federer’s mastery of his sport was exemplified by the fact he has reached the last 10 Grand Slam finals, and won eight of them.

Earlier in the day, and an hour’s flight to the west of Flushing Meadows in Illinois, Tiger Woods began the final round of the BMW Championship in third place but, with a massive sense of inevitability surrounding proceedings, slowly but inexorably gobbled up the frontrunners. Even by Woods’ standards, it was a weekend to remember. In overcoming Aaron Baddeley and Steve Stricker, he matched the lowest final round of his career – an 8-under-par 63 – and strode to a two-shot victory. It was his 60th win on the US Tour, having graced its fairways for barely 11 years. But 11 remarkable, and landscape-changing, years they have been.

Closer to home, Geelong yesterday delivered one of the AFL’s most emphatic finals displays by completely dismantling the Kangaroos, a team that finished the season in fourth place and was given some rough chance of an upset. But rarely has a team so thoroughly demoralized a finals opponent in the way Geelong did, oozing power and class through every line, and reducing the Roos to a jibbering, quivering mess. Some had doubts about the mental strength of a club that had not won a flag since 1963 and botched four grand final attempts since 1989, but the Cats quickly dismissed that notion as arrant nonsense best assigned to the waste bin of history. Two wins away from breaking that 44-year drought, it is history now which beckons the young men from Corio Bay.

While that demolition was taking place at the MCG, over the road at Olympic Park, Melbourne Storm made light of Brisbane’s lame verbal attempts at intimidation during the week by flogging the premiers, 40-0. Melbourne has clearly been the best side of the past two NRL seasons. The best its opponents can do is cry foul over grapple tackles, and deride the team as robotic. In reality, the Storm is a credit to the competition, and only a premiership will reward the dominance they have achieved under Craig Bellamy.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the All Blacks opened their rugby World Cup campaign in France with a 76-14 belting of Italy, a menacing display that only underlined its Cup favouritism.

As a sports reporter, it is difficult at times not to barrack for the story. And undoubtedly the best stories are those when the underdog makes good, or when a down-and-outer overcomes some sort of adversity. Such as when Buster Douglas, a 40-1 outsider, knocked out Mike Tyson in Tokyo, or when John Daly, as ninth reserve in the field, won the US PGA championship without ever having taken so much as one practice shot on the course. That is all grist for the sportswriter’s mill, the Boy’s Own Annual stuff that almost writes itself.

But there comes a time when we should get excited by sheer brilliance, when we should luxuriate in radiant talents, when we should stand up and applaud the maestro, the virtuoso, the numero uno. And it came this weekend, at home and abroad, when the sporting planets were in alignment and the stars came out to play.