There’s no question that the 18-16 tiebreaker [in the 1980 Wimbledon final between Borg and McEnroe] represented the most riveting episode in the sport’s history, as untouchable as Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. The case for Federer-Nadal rests on its unrelenting tension, the sustained brilliance, the fact that neither man let a troubling moment get him down. Forget any notion that Nadal is “in Federer’s head,” as some observed after the French Open. Maybe that was true in Paris, but not here. Federer was simply beaten, and if you witnessed his sequence of down-the-line forehand winners - there must have been 25 of them, each more mind-blowing than the last - you wondered how that was possible.

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Although it only stalled the inevitable, Federer hit a shot in that final game I still can’t believe. It was match point at 40-30 for Nadal, and he put a first serve exactly where he wanted it. With the casual aplomb of a gentleman pouring a glass of wine, Federer sent it whistling through the darkness with a blistering cross-court backhand winner. “No, that I cannot believe,” said Nadal, who struggled to express his feelings when he was interviewed in English. “I can’t see nothing, no?”