"It is probably my hardest loss by far, there is not much harder than this right now," the despondent Swiss star admitted after losing one of the greatest Grand Slam finals 9-7 in the fifth set after four hours and 48 minutes of extraordinary drama on the All England club's Centre Court.

Having being part of a final that will rank alongside the great Bjorn Borg-John McEnroe classic of 1980 provided little in the way of solace for Federer, who was denied the opportunity to surpass Borg's run of five consecutive titles.

"It is always nice to be part of great matches. Later on in life I will look back on it as a great match but right now there is not much of a feel-good factor or anything positive about it," he said ruefully.

Federer, 26, was gracious in his praise for the performance of Nadal, who had threatened to repeat his straight sets win in last month's French Open final after claiming the first two sets.

But his bitterness at losing his Wimbledon crown was reflected in a gripe about the fact that the match, which was twice interrupted for rain, was finished in rapidly fading light.

"I almost could not see who I was playing at the end, it was not funny," Federer said, revealing that he would have asked for play to be suspended for the night if he had broken back to level the match at 8-8 in the final set.

"It would have been brutal for the fans, for the media and for us to come back tomorrow but it is also tough on me to lose the biggest tournament in the world because of a loss of light."

Federer could console himself with the fact that he played, in patches at least, as well as he had done in any of the five previous finals here.

But the relentless quality of Nadal's resistance was underlined by the fact that the world number one was able to convert just one of the 13 breakpoints he generated over the course of the five sets, and was hustled into a total of 52 unforced errors, almost twice his opponent's tally.

"I thought I played well overall but I missed too many chances in the first couple of sets," he confessed. "I was struggling with the wind a little bit.

"On some of the break points Rafa played great, on others I played poorly. I should have decided much more what I really wanted to do but Rafa keeps you thinking and that is what great players do.

"I was not able to break him in last three sets but I pushed him right to the end."

Despite Nadal's triumphs here and at Roland Garros, Federer will remain world number one for now -- and he did not take kindly to a suggestion that he should be preparing to hand that position over to his Spanish rival.

"You write what you want," he snapped. "I'm going to try and win the Olympics and the US Open and then we can talk again."

Federer did not let his reign at Wimbledon end without an almighty scrap.

After holding his nerve to win a third set tie-break, he then saved two match points at the end of the fourth and, for much of the fifth he looked the more likely winner.

"It was a great feeling to turn it around in the fourth set tie-break and to push it to the fifth set was awesome," he said. "I really thought that with the momentum and having won in five sets last year that I was going to do it again.