Federer's return far from ideal

This time, however, a few worrying thoughts must have been crossing his mind after the first set of his quarter-final against Juan Carlos Ferrero was halted by rain with the score 5-5 and deuce on Federer's serve.

Federer had not played for six days. While Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic and the rest had toiled all week through persistent rain interruptions, the number one seed had polished off Marat Safin in straight sets last Friday.

Courtesy of a bye due to a fourth round injury to Tommy Haas Federer did not strike a ball in competition until a little after 3pm on Thursday.

If that induced the odd flake of rust then that did not seem the case when he raced into a 3-0 lead, breaking the Spaniard's serve in the second game.

At that point Ferrero, whose record against Federer stands at 8-3 in the Swiss star's favour, appeared intimidated by his task.

In fact, it was not until the ninth game that Ferrero seemed to realise that he was one of the few people in tennis to have done what Federer has failed to do - win the French Open.

That success came in 2003 when he beat Martin Verkerk in straight sets and when he was number one in the world for eight weeks.

Ferrero has also been a runner-up at the US Open and a semi-finalist at the Australian Open.

But it is his first Wimbledon quarter-final and eventually he showed why he has got there with some precise groundstrokes to break the Federer serve and get back on level footing.