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Late in a career of supreme beauty came a performance of remarkable grit. With it was the kind of win that would have you believe Roger Federer has found a way to master time as well as tennis.
With his 35th birthday a month away, there is a persistent question of when this glorious body of work will conclude.
And yet there he was, out-running and out-hitting a man in the prime of his life and producing one of the finest five-set comebacks in memory to reach the semi-finals of Wimbledon.
There were three times Marin Cilic thought he had him pegged, one for each of the match points he held in a wonderful contest he had led by two sets.
There was also the game at 3-3 in the third set when the Croat had three break points at 0-40 and the knowledge that one more good shot would just about do it.
But this is Federer, the winner of 17 Slams, seven of them on this grass, and evidently he is a man living in fear of retirement and almost nothing else.
Certainly he has no apprehension of the do-or-die moments that determine sport at its highest levels.
Twice on the match points in the fourth set he went big and bold with unreturnable second serves. The other decisive moments were turned his way not so much by those smooth strokes as by sheer force of will. He played a match of exceptional technical quality, as did his 27-year-old opponent, but it was stubbornness that won it, with scores of 6-7, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6, 6-3 stretched across three hours and 17 minutes on Centre Court.
When it was done, the third seed walked off with his entourage, insisting he would not touch any of the new-age tools of ice baths or oxygen tents to get his ageing frame back in fighting shape for his last-four match against Milos Raonic.
Cilic, who was two sets up on Wednesday before suffering defeat, accepts defeat to the hands of Federer
‘I’m old school,’ he said. ‘I’m not bothered with that stuff.’
On the surface on Wednesday he wasn’t bothered by much at all. But that was simply a facade, he revealed later, as inside he felt he was on the brink of defeat for almost the whole match.
‘I remember just being in trouble the whole time,’ he said. ‘At one point, you just get used to it. It’s not like, “Oh my God, all of a sudden there’s a match point, all of a sudden there’s a break point to save”.
‘It was just continuous for an hour or two. After I lost the second set, anything you do is crucial. You cannot afford any mistake any more.
‘Every break point then is like match points, too. So there were many more match points in my mind than just three of them there.
The seven-time Wimbledon champion appeared to be heading out when he was blitzed by Cilic’s power game‘I fought, I tried, I believed and at the end I got it done. It was just great on so many levels.’
With that he smiled at what he had done, which also includes him being Wimbledon’s oldest male semi-finalist since Ken Rosewall in 1974 and the most prolific winner of Slam matches in history, with his 307th victory taking him past Martina Navratilova.
Those are the kind of statistical milestones he has already dismissed as nice irrelevances this week.
For Federer, the only worthwhile targets now are trophies, having gone four years since he last won a Slam. That was at Wimbledon and it is here, on grass, where his game has its most realistic shot at a future glory.
But for so long it seemed to be going wrong, just as it had in the 2014 US Open semi-final when everything Cilic walloped dropped inside the lines.
The first set was brutally close until the tiebreak, when Federer coughed up five straight points and ultimately fell 7-4. He was then broken for 2-1 early in the second and the big-hitting disciple of Goran Ivanisevic blasted his way to that set as well.
The turning point came at 3-3 in the third. Federer somehow survived from 0-40 and then broke in the very next game.
‘That switched the momentum,’ said Cilic. And Federer’s view? ‘Phew.’
From there he faced match points in a wonderfully tense fourth set, first when serving at 4-5, and then at 5-6 before a third in the long tiebreak he won 11-9.
His second serves were decisive in those moments, another sign that the sort of doubts that sometimes creep into the minds of ageing giants during times of stress might not apply to this man.
He said: ‘I didn’t double‑fault in five sets. I think Pete Sampras once said, “You’re only as good as your second serve”. My second serve has always been there for me.’
A break at 4-3 in the decider paved the way for a remarkable win in a career full of them, leaving him two wins from an eighth Wimbledon crown.
It is all a long way on from the feelings of May when a bad back injury forced Federer to miss the French Open. That, as ever, was taken as a sign that the inevitable was nigh. Turns out, it isn’t.
‘I am surprised by this run,’ Federer admitted with a grin. ‘I was very worried coming here. I had to get through the first week and then who knows?
‘Next thing you know, I’m in the semis. I’ve surprised myself in quite a big way.’
Perhaps the biggest surprise is that anyone is surprised by Federer any more.
American actor Bradley Cooper and model Irina Shayk watch the Wimbledon action on Wednesday afternoon.