Roger Federer swanned imperiously into another Wimbledon final today, overcoming the last menacing obstacle on the way to his now familiar date with Wimbledon destiny by disposing of Marat Safin in straight sets.

The champion was again in magisterial form as moved to within one game of sixth successive title, winning his 65th grass-court match in a row in 100 delightful minutes, running out a 6-3 7-6 6-4 winner.

Watched on Centre Court by Bjorn Borg, the man whose five successive crowns he will now seek to surpass on Sunday, Federer had been concerned about the threat posed by the erratic but brilliant Safin, a man whose ranking of 75 he described as "ridiculous".

Yet once again his Centre Court majesty only ended up reducing Safin to familiar morose mad Marat chuntering and furious racquet chucking as he served out a clear warning to his final opponent - either Rainer Schuettler or Rafa Nadal - that it is going to take an incredible effort to wrest the title off him.

"Don't write me off too quickly," was Federer's message afterwards to all those who have begun to doubt him since his straight sets annihilation by Nadal in Paris last month.

He reckoned he had been surprised by some of the virulence of the criticism of his chances since Roland Garros but the only way has been to answer with dreamy tennis which sees him march into the final as the only man in the championships not to have dropped a set.

Federer began his latest assault on history in supreme fashion, racing into a 3-0 lead after just eight minutes before Safin had even wiped the sleep from his eyes.

A series of errant groundstrokes from the Russian allied to a couple of blistering forehands from the champion ensured Federer was in complete control from the opening exchanges and, serving with the sort of proficiency which saw him drop just 10 points on his delivery against Mario Ancic in his previous match, offered not even a whiff of a chance for Safin to claw his way back into the set.

It was, again, almost flawless tennis from the master and even when his standards slipped a little as he served for the set, Federer still produced three aces in the game to finish off the set in just 25 minutes, having conceded just four points on his serve.

The clinical fashion in which he'd drawn first blood brought back memories of last year's Centre Court clash between the pair in which Federer had dismantled Safin so efficiently that the mercurial Muscovite quickly lost heart.

At least by the second set, Safin had rediscovered some of the brilliance which had put paid to Novak Djokovic earlier in the tournament and he even began to assert enough pressure on Federer's serve to eke out a couple of break points in the fourth game, which were cancelled out with predictable Fed express deliveries.

How exactly was Safin going to break serve? He had kept his patience admirably, apart from one outbreak of familiar chuntering, but when Federer hit one perfectly obvious service winner, Safin decided to take his hopeless appeal to HawkEye only for the machine to demonstrate the ball to be miles in. Even Federer, who loathes the wretched machine, had to laugh.

Safin survived a break point at 3-3 with a murderous ace but generally looked pretty comfortable on his serve as he took the set into the sixth tie-break he has played this Wimbledon.

He had won the previous five but chose a desperate time to play probably his worst four points of the match, three times dumping straightforward backhands into the net, as Federer maintained his own 100 per cent tie break record this fortnight.

One sensational forehand winner gave him four set points and, after one moment of defiance from Safin, he finished off the tie-break 7-3 and sealed the in 33 minutes with an ace.

By now, Safin was simmering over with frustration, looking ready to explode into his mad as cheese mode. After making another unforced error at the start of the third set, he let out a blood curdling scream which brought a few titters from around the show court but did nothing to stop Federer's serene flow.

Safin seemed to recognise his fate, that it was only going to be a matter of time before Federer finished the job but it didn't stop him raging about his own impotence in the face of the Swiss's supremacy as he went slightly loco in the ninth game, smashing his racquet into the hallowed turf after losing a point.

At 5-4 down, he went back to his chair at the changeover and tried to put a massive dent in it with his racquet. It earned him nothing more than a code violation and offered Federer the incentive to get the job done quickly, a task he achieved superbly at match point by responding to Safin's net cord and whipping a sublime cross court backhand for victory.

There followed a little hop of triumph. "It was out of relief mainly,"

Federer insisted afterwards but it didn't look like relief, just delight at getting another chance to decorate the record books in his own peerless fashion.

Borg said earlier today the man could win 20 Grand Slams but a sixth Wimbledon would do for the great man himself.