James Lawton: Federer switces on the lights to dazzle impudent Ferrero

Finally, the sun was shining and with it came, beautifully on cue, something that is plainly still the ultimate rainbow of tennis: the kaleidoscope of Roger Federer's talent that is now just one step away from the assignment with history set by the great Swedish Iceman, Bjorn Borg.

Wimbledon had so desperately wanted to feel good. Now, suddenly, it has so much more than that. It is vibrant with the expectation created by the apparent certainty that tomorrow Federer will be going for his fifth straight title against one of two of the most competitively belligerent - and brilliant - young lions ever to come snarling to the top of the game that started off as an affair of gentlemen.

Federer still effortlessly retains that ancient status but yesterday, in a few sublime moments, he also defined precisely what will be required of the winner of today's semi-final between the now rampant young Mallorcan Rafael Nadal and the Serbian street-fighter Novak Djokovic.

One or the other will have to fight down genius, drain away the sting of the man who in one bewitching moment can make all arguments against his right to be the greatest player of all time the most irrelevant of academic musings.

It happened again in the warm mid-afternoon when the fine clay court specialist, and former French Open champion, Juan Carlos Ferrero, had the nerve, some would say impudence, to take a set off the champion.

The result was a reminder of the old fight trainer's advice to the raw youngster going in against a formidable old champion, "For God's sake, don't upset him by hitting him too hard." Ferrero is 27 but after he claimed the second set Federer's retribution was so instantly demolishing he must have felt like the inhabitant of a tennis nursery.

Federer swept him aside with shots of astonishing imagination and geometric perfection. Twice he lulled Ferrero with some easy, rhythmic stroke making, then produced backhands down the line which came with the effect of bolts of lightning. Ferrero simply shrivelled in the heat of such astonishing refinement.

After losing 6-7, 6-3, 1-6, 3-6, he said, "No, I'm not happy just to take a set off Roger Federer, I am a proud professional and you cannot think like that, but then against such a player it is very difficult indeed. Suddenly, he can take everything away from you."

This Federer did in a third set which was supposed to signal for him a rare battle to inflict his aura and his game. Ferrero had played with splendid life in the whirling windbowl the Centre Court has become with the disappearance of its roof; he had served with such clever force that Federer's normally serene expression tightened for a while. The hiatus must have stretched into all of a minute and a half ... or the time it took the most shrewdly calculating eyes in the game to re-focus.

Federer reported: "The fact was he served extremely well in the second set so it made it very hard for me to break him. He had games where he almost didn't hit a second serve. At that time, with the wind so bad, I found things difficult. I told myself I had to improve a little, and this is what I did with my backhand and with making sure I had more returns."

In the end it all added up to a sharply encouraging return from the days of inaction which came to him when he swept aside Marat Safin last Friday, then spent five days killing time, after a daily hour's practice, with visits to the West End, a hairdresser's, playing card games and watching movies.

"It was cosy at home while the other guys were having to come in and out of the rain, but I did know the danger of playing my first match after the break - it could have been an advantage - or a disadvantage," he said.

For a while it threatened to be a disaster. On Thursday, after a masterful start, his game began to unravel and as the rain came he was locked at 5-5 and deuce.

In the bright sunshine of late morning the crisis was checked; he opened the tie-break with a breathtaking, 129mph ace and was never in danger of losing that edge. But then who could have guessed that Ferrero would, for a while at least, remain so doggedly unintimidated? Federer said he wasn't surprised - "this is a very good, very clever player" - but he was no doubt troubled by both the gusts of wind and his own, albeit brief, vulnerability. Soon enough, though, as the song says, he could see clearly now the rain had gone.

Most of all he could see the hurdle presented by the young man he beat in the final last year, a 20-year-old Nadal who took a set even while plainly not quite believing that he was ready to beat the fabled Federer.

This time Federer clearly suspects that his fierce young rival has gained rather more than a mere year's worth of extra competitive substance. "I think Rafa has played fantastic throughout this tournament."

He had some bad luck in missing a forehand wide against Robin Soderling at match point which would have given him plenty of chance to rest. Instead he had to come back day after day to beat three very hard opponents. He had some luck against Mikhail Youzhny. But my God, after losing two sets, he came back very, very strong. I would have picked him as the finalist on the other side of the draw."

Before the collision which would bring Wimbledon, after all the bleak days, to a climax almost surreal in its potential for drama, Federer had to consider the particular threat presented by the winner of last night's long and intriguing battle between power and touch represented by the All-American hero Andy Roddick and France's rather more subtle Richard Gasquet.

Here though such detail had for some time been assigned to the margins of the tournament that had come so thrillingly to life. It had been buried by the sheer scale of the enduring brilliance, indeed the fantasy, of Roger Federer.

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