Wimbledon 2012: Andy Murray's defeat means the long wait to see BBC's victory showreel goes on Better known for zipping around the galaxy, bending time to his will with a slightly alien-looking female sidekick in tow, Beckham batted away Garry Richardson's moronic line of questioning, including gems such as: "If you had to go out there and serve for the match, how would you feel?" It was the ageless, unflappable, mildly fragrant Barker who greeted the nation as it took its seats for an afternoon of torment. "The sun is shining!" she trilled. "Typical British day" Except, of course, it was anything but typical. Not when something we had wanted so desperately, for so long, was so tantalisingly within our grasp. For most of us, the yearning has lasted a lifetime. Sometimes, during our more distracted moments - while doing the laundry, perhaps, or making a sausage sandwich - we convince ourselves that we don't really want it at all. But days like yesterday expose this delusion for what it is. After years of watching the likes of Chris Bailey and Jeremy Bates, this was finally our moment. So when I rejoined the match midway through the second set, with a sausage sandwich in my hand and the sound of the washing machine rumbling in the background, it was a pleasant surprise to find Murray a set up and cruising. Andrew Castle was remarking on how calm he looked, as if he should have been juddering with fear, muttering the word "horror" over and over again under his breath. Soon enough, though, Murray appeared to remember that he was playing a man with his own initialled logo, and as "RF" stole the second set, cheer was supplanted by reverence. "Those last two points were great," Castle said, scouring his vocabulary for the perfect word to describe the moment, and missing with the sort of epic reliability that saw him reach a peak of 80 in the world. Federer is the perfect antagonist, a man so nonchalantly vainglorious that he somehow converts himself into circumstance, a kind of racquet-wielding force majeure. His insouciant one-handed backhand, a shot peerless in its terrifying beauty, is swiped as if delivering manual chastisement to one of his many butlers. With Federer seizing the initiative, and the Ofcom code presumably precluding the description "that simpering monogrammed t***," as was frequently being uttered in my living room, Castle could only venerate. Sumptuous. Glorious. "Sublime " Rain intervened at this point, a hiatus that the BBC used to replay key moments from the match, but very, very slowly. Boy, do they love their super slo-mo at the Corporation. Boy, do they love the sight of Murray's tendons quivering like David Gilmour's guitar being played in vibrato. Either the Time Lord had been let loose in the VT truck, or somebody at the BBC fancies himself Francois Truffaut. When they resumed, it was Federer who appeared to be playing in slow motion. Murray was his puppet, his plaything, being despatched to and fro as if running his personal errands. "There's no shame in losing to Roger Federer," Becker said as victory was sealed. But grace is a poor substitute for glory. For now at least, the yearning goes on. For now at least, that reel of film in the BBC archive can remain in its case.