Roger Federer won a record-breaking fifteenth grand-slam tournament singles title and regained his status as the No 1 player in the world after his victory at Wimbledon on Sunday.

In front of a host of tennis legends, the 27-year-old Swiss defeated Andy Roddick 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 16-14 in a stunning climax lasting 4hr 16min. Federer broke the American’s serve only once during the match and it brought him the coveted title. The 77 games played were the most in any grand-slam event final in history.

In his 20 grand-slam championship finals, Federer has lost to only one player, Rafael Nadal, of Spain, who missed the championships through injury and whom he has leapfrogged to top place in the rankings.

Pete Sampras, seven times the Wimbledon singles champion, flew in from the United States especially to see Federer’s triumph and joined Rod Laver and Björn Borg in the front row of the Royal Box. Sampras took his seat after three games, but Federer said he still had to bid him welcome.

“Of course I said hello,” he said. “I didn’t want to be rude. He is a friend and he told me he would come, so I wasn’t surprised. I feel like this is a shared achievement because Pete was a wonderful champion, and he still has one more Wimbledon than me. I’m staggered, to be honest, that I have done this.”

Federer, who won the French Open for the first time last month to become the sixth player to triumph in all four of the grand-slam events, added: “I used to get nervous if friends came to see me play, then it was the same with my parents and now I am at home playing in front of all these great champions.

“I never thought of records when I was a junior player, but I’m really happy with the way I’ve handled myself since then.” Sampras was delighted for him, too, but he also paid tribute to the performance of Roddick, who had four points for a two-set lead.

“It was an epic, a fun match to watch. Roger is a great player and a good guy,” Sampras said. “He’s a stud. Fourteen grand-slams was a lot in 1990s and if Roger stays healthy, I could easily see him getting to 20.”

Poor Roddick. The American tried his heart out, only to come up short again on this hallowed ground. “I had two options out there, I either lay down or I keep going. The second option sounded better to me,” he said.

“Roger just stayed the course and toughed it out. He gets a lot of credit for a lot of things, but not for how many matches he digs deep because it looks easy to him a lot of the time. I gave myself a look, but it didn’t work out.”