Cricket is perhaps fortunate. One player so dominates its records that, even if his best years were three-quarters of a century ago, there is still little questioning of his status as “greatest ever”. But other, Bradman-less sports are consumed by the question: tennis, with its plethora of characters, of technological and stylistic changes over time, particularly so. But Roger Federer’s victory at Roland Garros on Sunday, meaning he is now one of only five players to have won all four Grand Slam tournaments and that he now shares with Pete Sampras the record for the most such titles won, has strengthened immeasurably his claims to the distinction.

Others have recognised this. Sampras himself calls Federer the greatest ever. Andre Agassi, the only man besides Federer to win the Grand Slams on three different surfaces, agrees. Ivan Lendl, whose record of most Grand Slam finals was broken on Sunday too, says disarmingly that he has “thought a lot about this” and that he thinks it is even between Federer and Rod Laver, the great Australian whom Federer hero-worships. There is something personal, too, to the manner in which greats of the past embrace Federer unstintingly: one couldn’t ask for one’s record to be broken by a nicer chap, they seem to say; he recognises the weight of history, he doesn’t shrug it off. When Laver was on hand to give him the Australian Open trophy in 2006, he was as tearful as when, two years later, Rafael Nadal took the title off him.

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