Same time, same place, same man, same trophy, same remarkable achievement, same utter dominance. Which leads to the same question: is there anybody who can challenge the glorious sameness that is Roger Federer’s authority over the men’s game?

Although so much was the same, there was a significant difference in the Rod Laver Arena. The 25-year-old Swiss, in defeating the gutsy Fer-nando González, became the fourth man to win a grand-slam title without dropping a set, only one of whom — Björn Borg, at the 1980 French Open — played a full seven best-of-five-set matches. Ken Rose-wall, who was perched in the VIP box here, played five matches in the 1971 Australian Open at Kooyong, having received a first-round bye in a 64-man draw.

This was Federer’s tenth grand-slam title, equalling the record of Bill Tilden, the American legend of the 1920s who won seven of his at the US Open, five against the same foe, Bill Johnson. Federer does at least face a new challenge every now and again, González being the eighth man to have been disposed of on these gala occasions. Federer has lost only one grand-slam final, to Rafael Nadal in Paris last spring.

Last year in Melbourne, Federer dropped the first set of the final to Marcos Baghdatis, of Cyprus, who then tightened up and could not make the most of his early effervescence. Yesterday, in a brisk wind that played havoc with the usually faultless Federer forehand, González stuck to his guns, floating his backhand slice, pounding away when the opportunities arose on his own famed forehand and ruffling the champion to the extent that the Chilean had two chances to claim the first set at 5-4. In that game alone, Federer played three — for him — appalling forehands.

But it is at these moments that a challenger has to take his chances and, quite often, the reality of what he might achieve blunts his instincts.

Federer caressed a forehand volley from a flashy cross-court shot by González on the first set point and the No 10 seed, not wanting to be dragged into a lengthy exchange, chose to unleash a forehand too quickly over the highest part of the net on the next and fluffed it.

That shot was a relic from the “old” González, a man who used to want to get every point over before most had started to develop. It was strangely out of character last night, for González had taken his time over everything, unwrapping new rackets after what seemed like every other game, regrip-ping them constantly, taping his fingers, wiping down, trying to pick fights with the moths that flitted across the court — anything that might disrupt Federer’s rhythm.

It took the Swiss five attempts to claim the first set, four of them in a twelfth game of 20 points, seven deuces and innumerable swings of fortune. Once González had fly-hacked a forehand into the fifteenth row of the crowd to surrender the initiative in the tie-break, one sensed that Federer was mentally moving through the gears.

One break of serve — in the seventh game, which is usually so decisive — was sufficient in sets two and three, Federer dropping only two points on serve in the third (and four in his last nine service games, which illustrated how little he was being troubled by now).

Only when the world No 1 reached match point did he let out the kind of roar that demonstrated how much he wanted it. A backhand pass, splitting the ground between González and the side-line, brought him home 7-6, 6-4, 6-4.

Cue the same old celebration — a collapse on to his back, emotions churning. A few minutes later, receiving the Norman Brookes Trophy, he was self-control personified and, recalling that he let the tears flow when Laver presented it in 2006, said: “We all remember what happened last year, I’m trying to keep it together this time.”

Dignified, as ever, he found time to praise González for the improvements in his tennis, saying that he was one of the great characters on the tour.

What continues to make Federer such a classy champion is that he, too, is a person to be admired. One can only hope that someone can muster the devil in themselves to beat him. Nadal will give it a go on clay. Andy Murray? Hard to see anyone else.

A word of praise, too, for Sandra De Jenken, the first woman to umpire a men’s singles final in grand-slam history. The Frenchwoman made no errors — and not even the great Federer could equal that.