HE'S BAAACK!

Wimbledon, the oldest tennis tournament in the world, with its affinity for tradition, has a new tradition of producing classic men’s finals. Federer needed five sets to defeat Rafael Nadal of Spain in 2007, five more sets to lose to Nadal last year and then required the longest fifth set in terms of games in the 132-year history of Grand Slam finals to beat Roddick, 5-7, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (5), 3-6, 16-14.

Though Federer often made it look easy to win major trophies in the early years of his career, no one can accuse him of making it look easy anymore. He had to fight through two five-setters this year to get to the French Open final, where he won his 14th Grand Slam singles title. On Sunday, he had to serve, serve and serve some more to hold off Roddick and win his record-breaking 15th.

It is a men’s record with an asterisk in the sense that, before the open era, many of the game’s luminaries played in only a few Grand Slam tournaments before turning professional. For a better sense of where the record may stand, it is useful to look at the numbers for women, who rarely left the amateur ranks. The record for singles titles there, held by Margaret Court of Australia, is 24.

But Federer, all caveats aside, has passed the target available, and it could have been expected that when he did pass it, he would drop to his knees on the grass. Instead, Federer stayed on his feet and met Roddick quickly at the net.

“I know the pain Andy must have gone through, and that’s also I guess one of the reasons I didn’t go overly crazy about the victory on the court,” Federer said.

His 15th came at the same place he won his first, in 2003, when Federer had thick stubble on his face and wore his hair in a short ponytail.

The logical assumption is that a tennis player who now has just about everything and is about to become a father is ripe for a motivational lapse. But Federer argues that he takes too much pleasure in the game and, perhaps just as important, the nomadic life of a tennis professional, to start winding down quite yet.

That said, he does not plan to play again for five weeks, with Mirka expected to give birth during that span. He intends to return for the World Tour 1000 tournament next month in Cincinnati, where Nadal also plans to make his return after missing Wimbledon with tendinitis in his knees.

“I definitely have to regroup after this victory and put my mind in the right frame of mind for the rest of the season,” Federer said. “I definitely want to finish the year at No. 1.”

Parenthood could, of course, change matters, for a champion who will turn 28 on Aug. 8. But Federer — a multilingual global villager with a former tennis player for a spouse — is better equipped than most of his predecessors to endure.

“I can’t just be at home for the next six months; I want to travel,” he said. “Mirka said she has no problem traveling with me, so we’ll see how possible that will all be. It’s good times, you know, and I’m not worried. I’m not going to be like: ‘What now? I’ve reached everything, and there’s no more point of playing, it’s better to just retire.’ ”

Despite his unimposing, light-framed physique (or perhaps because of it), Federer has been remarkably durable, something underscored by Nadal’s missing Wimbledon and by the hip surgery of another longtime rival, David Nalbandian of Argentina.

Roddick is already paying the price for Sunday’s marathon, during which he slipped late in the fourth set and then rose slowly, limping before continuing. On Monday, citing a hip flexor injury, he withdrew from the United States team for this week’s Davis Cup quarterfinal, scheduled to start Friday in Croatia.

Federer has played in 39 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments, and he has won the last two after being forced to take an extended break in February because of lower back pain that he said hindered him during his loss to Nadal in the Australian Open final. That defeat left him inconsolable during the awards ceremony.

Federer said the problem with his back was muscular, not structural, and was linked to the biomechanical pressures of playing tennis. “When you play a lot of matches, you always make the same movements over and over again,” he said. “Yesterday, I hit 50 aces. It’s just not healthy for your body.”

Federer said he felt the “defining moment” of his resurgent summer came when he was practicing in April to get ready for the clay-court tournament in Rome.

“I’ve always been pushing myself in practice, but I told my team that we needed to do something completely extreme,” Federer said. He said he told his team to push him all over the court to truly test his back.

“The truth is, I was scared playing with my back sometimes,” Federer said.

Confident again, he has won three tournaments in a row — in Madrid, Paris and now Wimbledon.

 He is back at No. 1 for the first time since last August.

CHRISTOPHER CLEAREY

NY TIMES