WIMBLEDON, England (AP) - Roger Federer was playing for history. Andy Roddick was playing the match of his life.
On and on they dueled, Federer trying for a record-breaking 15th major championship, Roddick striving for his second, in a Wimbledon final that required more games than any Grand Slam title match in the considerable annals of a sport dating to the 1800s.
"Ten games all, final set," intoned the chair umpire. Then, "Twelve games all, final set." And, still later, "Fourteen games all, final set."
They were each other's equal for four full sets and nearly the entire 30-game fifth set. Until Federer, far more experienced in such matters, finally edged ahead, breaking Roddick's serve for the only time in the 77th and last game to close out a 5-7, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (5), 3-6, 16-14 victory Sunday.
The epic match - the fifth set alone lasted more than 11/2 hours - gave Federer his sixth Wimbledon title. Add that to five from the U.S. Open, three from the Australian Open and one from the French Open, and Federer's Grand Slam total rises to 15, one more than Pete Sampras, who flew in from California on Sunday morning to be on hand.
"He's a legend," Sampras said. "Now he's an icon."
Indeed, Sampras already was among those labeling Federer the greatest tennis player ever, and there's no doubt the 27-year-old from Switzerland keeps bolstering his case.
"It's not really one of those goals you set as a little boy," Federer told the Centre Court crowd during the trophy ceremony, "but, man, it's been quite a career. And quite a month."
Federer won the French Open four Sundays earlier to complete a career Grand Slam and tie Sampras with 14 major titles (Margaret Smith Court owns the women's record of 24).
"Sorry, Pete," Roddick said. "I tried to hold him off."
He weathered Federer's career-high 50 aces and his 107 total winners in the longest match and longest fifth set in major final history, topping marks set in 1927.
The tennis gods - as well as Sampras, Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg, all in front-row seats - must have enjoyed every moment of the 4-hour, 16-minute tussle. Federer, who can make it all look so easy, was forced to work darned hard to eclipse Sampras' mark, and Roddick was left heartbreakingly close to finally winning Wimbledon.
Roddick dropped to 0-3 in finals at the All England Club, also beaten by Federer in 2004 and 2005. After the match ended on a shanked forehand by the sixth-seeded American, the two men hugged at the net. A mere handshake wouldn't do.
The winner donned a specially tailored white jacket with a gold "15" stitched on the back, while the loser - a word that hardly seems fair in this case - slumped in his chair, head bowed, until rising to acknowledge the spectators' chorus of "Rodd-ick! Rodd-ick!"
"Sports, or tennis, is cruel sometimes. We know it," Federer said. "I went through some five-setters in Grand Slam finals, too, and ended up losing. It's hard."
A year ago, on the same lawn, Federer's five-year reign as Wimbledon champion ended in a 9-7 fifth set defeat against his nemesis, Rafael Nadal. Six weeks later, Federer relinquished to Nadal the No. 1 ranking after a record 237 consecutive weeks at the top.
But Nadal did not defend his Wimbledon title, citing sore knees, and Federer not only regained his championship at the All England Club - the Grand Slam he says means the most to him - but returns to No. 1 Monday.
"It's staggering that I've been able to play so well for so many years now and stay injury-free," Federer said. "I knew what it took to win the big ones. ... It's crazy that I've been able to win so many in such a short period of time."
Sampras - whose 14th major title came in his last match, at age 31, at the 2002 U.S. Open - and his wife appeared in the Royal Box during the changeover after Sunday's third game. Walking to the baseline directly below, Federer acknowledged Sampras with a nod of the head and a little wave.
"I thought, 'I don't want to be rude,' you know?" Federer said.
He wept with joy after his first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon in 2003. And he bawled in the locker room after his 40-match winning streak here ended against Nadal in 2008. This time, Federer kept it together, perhaps because he was too exhausted after a match chock-full of contradictions:
- Federer's ace count was one shy of the Wimbledon record and, most remarkably, 23 more than Roddick, who is better-known for his knee-buckling serves.
- Roddick broke serve twice in the first four sets; Federer, considered a superior returner, couldn't come through until the match's concluding game.
- Federer won both tiebreakers; Roddick is the one who began the day 26-4 in those set-capping races to seven points.
Then there was the most counterintuitive piece of all: that Roddick would even stay close, much less be on the verge of victory, given that he came in 2-18 against Federer, including 0-7 at major tournaments.
Roddick made quite clear, quite quickly, that he is a new-and-improved version, delivering four passing winners by the time the match was 13 minutes old - three with his backhand, long his weaker side.
And he broke Federer to close the first set. It happened suddenly: Federer won 21 of the first 24 points on his serve, but Roddick took three out of four in a blink, earning the last point of that set with a backhand down the line that drew a wide forehand from Federer.
The crowd roared, sensing an upset. There were more rumblings when Roddick, the 2003 U.S. Open champion, went up 6-2 in the second-set tiebreaker. Here, then, were four chances to take a 2-0 lead in sets.
Roddick might have been forgiven for thinking, "Wow, I'm one point away from leading Roger Federer two sets to none in the Wimbledon final." He certainly played as though burdened by looking ahead, letting all four set points slip from his grasp. Most discouraging was the last, when he wildly misplayed a backhand volley. It was part of a six-point, set-ending run for Federer.
How does someone recover from that? Somehow, Roddick did.
"At that point, like everything else, there's two options: You lay down or you keep going," he said. "The second option sounded better to me."
Roddick lost the third set, too, but rallied to take the fourth, and then came the fifth. Wimbledon doesn't use tiebreakers in fifth sets, and there were times it seemed Federer and Roddick would play into the night.
Federer faced a serious test at 8-8, though, when Roddick earned two break points with a backhand winner down the line. Federer saved the first with a 118 mph service winner, and the second with a volley winner. There was not another break point for either man until Roddick served while trailing 15-14.
At deuce, Roddick sailed a forehand long, giving Federer his seventh break point of the match. Until then, he was 0 for 6. But this was also a championship point, and Federer converted.
"Frustrating, at times, because I couldn't break Andy 'til the very, very end," Federer said. "So satisfaction is maybe bigger this time around to come through, because I couldn't control the match at all."
As he enjoyed the first post-victory moments in the locker room - a more muted celebration than usual, owing to Roddick's presence - members of the grounds crew entered and presented him with the Centre Court net. Another keepsake for Federer's ever-more-crowded trophy room.
This was the first Wimbledon with a retractable roof on Centre Court, a modern touch for a stadium that opened in 1922.
But this edition of the tournament wound up being almost entirely dry, with only two matches contested with the roof shut. This final was played with the blue sky above. The tennis gods must have wanted a good view.