The touchstone of champions is not how well they play at their best: it’s the timing. It’s when they actually do so. And in this glorious and enthralling Wimbledon men’s final, Roger Federer waited until the sixth game of the fifth set, 3½ hours after the start, before raising his game to the dizziest heights that even he is capable of reaching.

So much had been thrown against him. He had been finding his A-game only intermittently and Rafael Nadal, the opponent who stalks him across the courts of the world, had seized the momentum of the match with his utterly unquenchable spirit.

Time after time, Federer found his best coming back over the net with added zip. For Nadal, nothing is a lost cause. This, and his phenomenal power, make him the best in the world when it comes to turning defence into attack. It was an inspiring performance.

The fourth set of the match was extraordinary enough: a bold and tumultuous grasping of the initiative by Nadal, a flat refusal to allow Federer to settle into his preferred mode of easy serenity. Federer is not a man easily rattled, but Nadal was at it with a will yesterday. He reeled off four games in a row and Federer was struggling for respectability.

Expert View

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BACKGROUND

• Federer equals Borg's famous five

• Swiss maestro survives Nadal barrage

• Murray’s mixed blessing ensures domestic bliss

• Fans starting to feel short-changed

• Results from SW19

Related Internet Links

• Rafael Nadal blog

• The Wimbledon blog

• Wimbledon Timeline

Multimedia

• Wimbledon match tracker

• Flushing Meadows Image Highlights

• 2007 Wimbledon draw

It was all Nadal. Federer, so fine a user of his natural authority on court, was unable to boss anything. Nadal was controlling the match: controlling the tempo with his interminable time-wasting, controlling the point by consistently out-duelling Federer from the baseline. Into the fifth set they went, Federer struggling to hold serve, pushed hard on every point.

And then. And then it happened: so swift it was hard to believe.

Federer captured the game by means of a sudden explosion of pure and unadulterated brilliance. Playing what might be the finest tennis of his life, and from absolutely nowhere, he ripped Nadal’s service apart. A running forehand pass, an outlandish flip to the corner, and then a miraculous rally.

All of a sudden, Federer was home, and the history boy was saluting Björn Borg, knowing that five Wimbledon championships in a row put him unequivocally in the category of the all-time great. Nadal did his best to spoil it, for that is his job, but it was was Federer’s day, just as it has been Federer’s half-decade.

The battle for world domination with Nadal will continue and good, for this is a rivalry that brings the best from both – and the best behaviour from both as well, for they were both charmingly free with the compliments afterwards. Sport really is better like that, for all the nonsense spouted by American coaches.

The best rivalries have their being in contrast and as John McEnroe and Borg brought us hot and cold, so Nadal and Federer bring us heart and soul. Even their entrances made an exaggerated contrast: it looked as if Rambo was taking on Fred Astaire. That’s a mismatch, but the result depends on whether it’s a dance movie or a fight movie.

Federer can play many parts, that is his strength. He can play in a dozen different ways, just as he can deal with any ball with a dozen different shots. He is sport’s great shape-shifter: an artist who, yesterday, was forced to show us every fighting quality he possessed. When it was necessary – when it was the only option – Fred Astaire turned streetfighter, and he fought viciously with all the elegance and certainty he is capable of.

Federer also gave us his own Rambo, as well as his Fred. What’s more, he threw in D’Artagnan, Houdini, Picasso, Lao-Tzu and Dr Strange. He can be as mellifluous as Noël Coward, as harsh as Bob Dylan. He can he as canny as Ulysses, as defiant as Hercules, as brilliant as Einstein, as brutal as Genghis Khan.

All this and more. For that fit of perfect brilliance came when the match was slipping out his control. Merely staying in the match, fighting for those service games, was a severe and searching test of character. To come up with something sublime at this of all moments showed something far beyond mere tenacity.

It was the revelation of a character trait that very few possess. Call it the instinct for championship: the understanding of oneself not just as mere winner, but as the best of all. It is something so powerful that it more or less guarantees the occasional miracle: and in a few perfect shots at the absolute pluperfect time, Federer showed himself for what he is. A champion: a great champion.