For goodness sake he’s 37... too old to be doing this!

BRIEFLY, and from nowhere, roger Federer appeared to remember how old he was. Thirty-seven, for god’s sake. and the father of twins. Two sets of twins, come to think of it. He was certainly too old to be doing this. and here. and against him, too. oh, he felt tired. What did he think he was playing at?

and momentarily, the spirit sagged and the limbs creaked and the old man looked on the point of surrender. From two break points up, he handed over 20 of 23 points as rafa nadal closed out the second set 6-1. This, many thought, was the end. Federer had won the first set on a tiebreak but here was age and the challenge of a younger, fitter man catching up with him in real time and on Centre Court.

Yet we’ve seen this film before. nadal was supposed to have dispatched Federer to the margins here in 2008. Wasn’t true then, isn’t true now. From somewhere, again in the ether, a fresh energy inspired him, the years tumbled away and Federer played arguably the greatest, most focused tennis of his twilight years. if these indeed are twilight years.

Maybe in a dank attic in an abandoned gothic pile in the swiss alps there is a portrait of Federer aging horribly. Maybe a deal has been struck with some diabolic entity and there will be a price to pay. The supernatural certainly offers a more plausible explanation than the rational here.

TENNIS players approaching 38 should not blow nadal off court. nadal is one of the greatest athletes the sport has known. some of his power shots draw gasps from the crowd. The miracle that is the television camera cannot hope to do justice to the spin he places on a ball. and his movement around the court; at one time he took his shoes off and skin fell like gruesome, repulsive snow.

This is a man who gives everything to win a match. and, somehow, Federer gave more.

Forget tennis, this was one of the greatest individual performances in the history of sport. Tiger Woods’ comeback at the Us Masters this year was astonishing, but golf is not as physically demanding, or as brutally gladiatorial as the tennis court. in what proved to be the final game of the match, nadal visibly raised his level of aggression as he fought to remain. returns were hit harder, his reactions to points won more screamingly intense.

Having been in Federer’s corner for two hours and 45 minutes, Centre Court rose to acknowledged this passionate resistance. They roared nadal’s little victories, his match points saved, the baseline rally that ended with a forehand so precise Federer didn’t — couldn’t — move to confront it. and while major golf has its own duels and intensity, it isn’t like that.

so, for Federer to best an opponent — and an 18-time grand slam winner — on such a fast, exacting, demanding surface at his age is superhuman.

ignore also his status as the no 2 seed. it could be argued that, as such, Federer is expected to be in tomorrow’s final with novak Djokovic. and, while that is true, it was also thought that Wimbledon had been generous in its assessment of Federer, and he would more than meet his match in the younger nadal, if they were paired in the semi-final.

nadal made relatively brief work of Federer on clay in Paris, and had won their last meeting here, that epic five-set final in 2008.

Many thought nadal had played tennis’s greatest match that day, and ended Federer’s years of dominance in the process. as we have subsequently seen, the first statement has proven considerably easier to justify than the second.

How did this compare to that match? it came close. not as long, obviously, and not as dramatic, shorn of that fifth set and the seesaw that proceeded it, the famously late finish with night closing in.

Yet the journeys the two players had taken since and the fact they remain at the top of the game 11 years later, provided a romantic element to complement the feats of athletic mastery. The fact every grand slam final could be the last for Federer, at his age, makes each sight of him special, too. We should drink him in like Lionel Messi, like Ms Dhoni, like the greatest of the great.

and yet, on days like this, there is little sign of Federer’s genius waning. That second-set blip aside, he is astonishingly still the man we saw in 2008, the same deft touches, the same grace, the same ease of movement. no one plays tennis like Federer and it is quite possible nobody ever will.

it wasn’t just those individual moments when his talent exploded — when nadal attempted the most viciously forceful passing shot and Federer killed it on the volley at the net, his control and feel unsurpassed — but in the long baseline rallies that he invariably won.

In those moments it was impossible to take your eyes off the game but, if you did, if you closed them and just listened, nadal’s effort could be heard in his escalating grunts as he hit the ball. There would follow only the sound of the racket as Federer returned another backhand slice.

on it would go. nadal’s exertions ever more desperate, Federer almost toying with him until the point ended, most frequently in his favour. it wasn’t quite like that, of course. There is incredible physical commitment in Federer’s game. it’s just that, at his best, he doesn’t make it look so.

His ball seems to glide back across the court, he feathers where others bludgeon. and then it dies and drops and gives his opponent nothing to work with.

nadal kept having to crank it up as Federer’s subtle returns pitched near his feet, looking up insolently. another monstrous strike and back the ball would come, more of the same until the time was right. Then Federer would strike — the coup de

grace, a winner of unreturnable accuracy. He was stunning.

at other times, he shed his years the way a matador drops his cloak on entering the ring. Left them at his feet as he charged along the baseline, or into the net, or on one occasion both. That sequence ended with Federer claiming the point with a cross-court return from a nadal drop shot that the entire arena considered a done deal.

Federer had other ideas. He continues to have other ideas. Unique ideas. about aging and desire; about athleticism; about potential and the possible; about what can be achieved by a man of middle age. This truly is one of the most remarkable sporting lives. The goat? Who could argue. He’s so much the goat it’s a surprise there is any grass left on Centre Court.