Roger Federer- the tennis great who defies superlatives.

Roger Federer- the tennis great who defies superlatives.

Roger Federer did what he would normally does when he wins a tennis match. He calmly moved towards the Wimbledon net to shake the hands of Rafa Nadal and extended the hand of courteous friendship. There was none of the boastful bombast that might have come to characterise other lesser mortals, just a modest smile and nothing more than an appreciative wave to not only the crowd but his family who are clearly the most important people in his life.

Federer, now 37, seems to have been around for ever but yesterday the man from the land of cuckoo clocks and cheese, produced another one of those superlative and stupendous displays, reaching yet again a Wimbledon's men's final. Many of us could hardly believe that a man who continues to defy age and explanation, is still playing with all the exuberance and athleticism of a 17 year old about to make his debut at Wimbledon.

But this match between these two heavyweights of the tennis world took the game to such heavenly heights that at times you felt utterly privileged to be an outsider looking on. This was unbelievable tennis, tennis of the finest and richest vintage, tennis of ambrosial quality, supped from the most expensive bottle of wine, tennis at its most intoxicating, truly a feast for the eyes and senses.

In the end Federer beat Nadal 7-6(7-3) 1-6 6-3-6-4 but by the end of this eye- popping, breathless and spellbinding men's single final we can only have imagined what would have happened if the match had actually gone the distance in a five set thriller. Nothing though could have prepared us for this colossal and most intriguing game of tennis, a match that kept delivering and reminded you of those gold embossed confrontations between Borg and Connors as well as Borg and Mcenroe.

Sport loves to revel in its moments of gripping drama and suspense, its natural inclination to exaggeration and hyperbole when the simplest word or phrase would be more than enough. And yet Roger Federer, at an age when most of his contemporaries would be more than happy to hang up their rackets, is still pursuing greater goals, reaching out for even more distant horizons and then somehow conquering those heights.

Although Federer dropped a set to Nadal, by the second Federer was re-charging his batteries, limbering up gently on the baseline and compiling a whole new vocabulary for the game. Now Federer had become the master of re-invention, powering and pounding away violent forehand returns and then viciously swinging his racket with brute force. Federer punched his shots ferociously past Nadal, volleying and half volleying the ball away from the Spaniard with the most velvety, silky and smoothest of winners.

Once again though it was the tireless vitality and inexhaustible stamina of Federer that left the Wimbledon loyalists gasping for breath. Federer seemed to be taunting and tormenting his younger opponent, stretching Nadal between the tramlines like a man who loves to use an elastic band. Federer ran and chased, scampered and scurried, swiping his racket at shots he had no divine right to get.

After Federer had simply overwhelmed Nadal in the next two sets with those poetic drop shots and another expressive range of delightful chip and charges at the net, the game looked to be up for Nadal. The delicious weight of the Federer half volley and volley, the ability to pick up Nadal's shot from the ankles, almost beggared belief. There were booming, running forehand winners, impossibly angled shots that seemed to float over the top of the net and mesmeric aces that flew past Nadal rather like a hare at a greyhound track.

The Swiss genius was now unstoppable, crashing shots from the very depths of the baseline, following through with his arms with fluid and flowing strokes. Here was a Roger Federer playing with a technical refinement, liquid fluency and painterly artistry. Having now plunged to his lowest level by conceding two sets, Nadal had now been ruthlessly pinned back and finally waved the white flag of surrender in the third set, as Federer finished off his friend and rival 6-4.

So it is that for what seems the umpteenth time Federer is back in another Wimbledon men singles final. It seems at times that the Swiss has quite literally set up a permanent camp on Centre Court. When Bjorn Borg was winning Wimbledon titles for fun, it must have appeared as if nobody would ever knock him off his lofty perch. For Roger Federer the impression is that he may be around for much longer than we might have imagined.