But so complete has been his domination of the sport that he cannot move these days without setting a new record and he knows that at the age of 26, as soon as this run stops, he will never be able to get it back. That brings with it a crushing pressure. Playing a bloke in shorts in a Grand Slam final is easy; playing destiny is terrifying.

“I think about Pete’s record a lot now, honestly,” he said.

“In the beginning, I felt pushed a little bit in the corner, put under pressure about the

situation because you don’t win slams like that, it’s just too tough. I feel these two and a half weeks, it’s so draining.

“I’m exhausted in the end. It’s a great relief just to finally maybe have a good night’s sleep without thinking about the upcoming five-setter I have to play.

“So I know how tough it is. To come so close already at my age is fantastic, and I really hope to break it.”

Just to add a little extra spice to the moment, Federer won the biggest pay cheque in the history of the sport. By winning the US Open Series, the warm-up circuit that leads into the Open, he added a $1million bonus to his earnings in Flushing Meadows and pocketed a total of $2.4m for his efforts.

That brought a huge smile to the face of his girlfriend, Mirka, who has been known to frequent the shops of Fifth Avenue on her stays in the Big Apple.

There have been 18 Grand Slam tournaments since the summer of 2003 when Federer won his first Wimbledon title.

Of those 18, Federer has reached 14 finals and won 12 of them. The US Open was his 10th consecutive major final. Not even Sampras in his pomp could control the sport like that.

For Djokovic, it was all too much. He is brimming with self-confidence but when it came to his first major final and to taking on the mighty Swiss, he panicked.

He had seven set points in the first two sets and should have been sitting pretty in the third with a 2-0 lead but blew them all.

Winning finals is not like winning normal matches and he could only marvel at Federer’s ability to handle the moment.

“He’s the No 1 player in the world and everybody expects him to do well in every tournament, on every surface, so he has a lot of pressure,” said Djokovic. “It’s amazing to see him, how fast and how successful he deals with that pressure. He performs some incredible tennis.

“Obviously he’s very talented and has a lot of advantages, but to reach that situation, he had to work a lot. He had to wait. It cannot happen right away. Time is very valuable and time is experience.”

Djokovic’s moment will come, of that both he and Federer are certain. But for the moment there is only one man in charge of tennis – the man in black, the one with the sweaty palms and a date with history.