Wimbledon 2012: Roger Federer's genius trumps Andy Murray's talent on day British tennis regained its pride The stage was beautifully set for a British catharsis. Two weeks after England's footballers crashed out in an umpteenth penalty shoot-out Murray offered grounds for the nation to unite around its television screens on a wet summer Sunday. You had to rub your eyes to believe a British player was actually standing on the opposite side of the net to Federer, whose athletic grace is the finest sight in modern sport. The land that staged this struggle is in a curious state, beset by recession, banking scandals, the Leveson inquiry, national frictions and a deepening obsession with celebrity. All were represented here. Rupert Murdoch sat just outside lobbying distance from David Cameron, who was perched a couple of rows in front of David and Victoria Beckham, who were along from Alex Salmond, the Scottish National Party leader who would like to send Murray to Wimbledon as a foreign player: a Scot, rather than the semi-darling of the Home Counties. Not forgetting the Middletons, emblems of the Queen's jubilee, from the same wet summer as the forthcoming London Olympics, in which Murray will also compete. Up there in the All England Club's VIP enclosure Boris Johnson was the face of the capital, braced for its fiesta. So inside Centre Court we had the perfect cross-section of the nation, minus a raucous football or Barmy Army crowd. When the congregation struck up a chant of "Andy, Andy" we might have been at a school sports day. Also in England, the John Terry race trial starts in London today. Beyond Centre Court's confines there is doubt and conflict everywhere. Inside, there was a certain purity to the battle between one man striving for the top (Murray) and another trying to stay there at a time when Nadal and Djokovic have tried to steal the show. Sixteen grand slam titles played zero grand slam titles here. And it showed, in Federer's tactical mastery. It showed, too, in the softness of his hands, the ease of his movements, the assurance with which he punched winners into the court's farthest corners. Murray won the first set but was unable to take his chances in the second. Symbolically, that one ended with the most subtle of Federer drop shots. In this form he could hit a butterfly across the net and not harm it. Skill is meant to prevail over power. Not that Murray was just a basher. He won much of the outdoor match but lost the indoor one, when Federer developed a lethal rhythm. The defining game was a 20-minute marathon in the third set, in which Murray fought through six break points to save his service game but finally succumbed. In those moments you could feel him drifting back towards the boyish, bedraggled state we know so well. But it was not the start of an implosion. He lost the third 6-3 but redoubled his efforts in the fourth. The break against him came from another slice of Federer sorcery: a whipped backhand cross, hit with sadistic fizz. Good Wimbledon finals are a marvellous study in hand-to-hand combat and psychological conflict. Murray endured it well. He spread hope around the place. Playing this well, he would win a grand slam title in most eras. Yet the old conundrum remains. It is almost inconceivable that he will make it through to a final without having to face one of the three amigos: Federer, Djokovic or Nadal. Say Federer retires in two or three years. Murray might be 28 by then. He is already tied with his coach, Ivan Lendl, for the record of unsuccessful grand slam final appearances (four), though Lendl won eight in the end. No wonder Murray's tears burst their dam. "You feel like you're attention seeking, but it's not like that at all," he said. No, it was not like that at all. A man who avoids the attention of the masses is unlikely to start seeking it in defeat. It was perhaps a useful step to show an ambivalent British public his tender side. As "The Fed" stood in his comfy pullover, with sleeves pushed up, Murray lost all touch with his trademark inscrutability. It felt less like another gallant British failure than a breakthrough for someone who has been stuck, painfully, on a very British threshold. This was an explainable defeat to the greatest of champions. Tennis in this country is not yet out of the village stocks but the rotten veg is no longer flying. Genius: it does you in.