Federer won three points with chips in the first game of the match, passing Isner twice and watching one of Isner's backhands off a short return sail long.
A Wawrinka return sails long and Djokovic looks skywards, the sight of a relieved man who knows, at 40-15, he is just within one point of tapping a nail into Wawrinka's coffin.
The solution may lie in the past - a return to sail power.
He slugged a serve deep to Murray's backhand and watched the return sail long and wide.
But Williams, who dominated that third set as Azarenka struggled with unforced errors, ultimately claimed the title on her second championship point when an Azarenka backhand return sailed long.
In a certain way, the shepherd was like a sailor, nomadic, without a fixed date of return, sailing in unknown waters, without any protection from the vicissitudes of nature, and without fixed abode, with a 'woman in each port' , not because this was actually true, but because he was beyond the control of the rest of the community.
Zheng Jie smacked a first serve into Ivanovic's body and gave Chinese tennis a huge pre-Olympic lift as Ivanovic's forehand return sailed out of play.
At 40-15, Li's return sails well into the tramlines and it's hard to see a way back for the 28-year-old.
When the match ended, after Novak Djokovic's service return sailed long, Murray had become the first British man to capture a Grand Slam singles championship since Fred Perry in 1936.
She finally won when Maleeva's return sailed wide.
Kirilenko's service return sailed long, setting up another match point with Kirilenko serving.
