Roger Federer's popularity in defeat a fitting tribute to Novak Djokovic’s astonishing excellence

The longer it goes, the louder it gets.

London, New York and now Melbourne. Three world cities where Roger Federer is exalted like one of their own. Three outposts where Novak Djokovic is set up to be the pantomime villain. Win or lose, Djokovic’s persona can’t seem to buy a break, but who says he has to win a popularity contest?

If support truly meant anything in tennis, the raucous support Federer has garnered from these three cities over the past seven months would have been enough to sate his wants and needs on the sport’s grandest stages. Enough to end a four-year wait for an 18th Grand Slam.

Federer has been more British than Benjamin Disraeli, more American than Edgar Allan Poe and more loved Down Under than Mick Dundee these past seven months, yet Djokovic walks away parading the bunting.

The underlying feeling goes on that their man would have won the Australian Open semi-final if not for the pesky Serb and his astonishingly flexible ways, but in a week of poet Robert Burns, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

Federer could have won, but not should have. Against Djokovic, it feels like he can’t. No mass gathering, banners and outpouring of goodwill from 15,000 fans on Rod Laver Arena can alter such an indelible fact of life. Like death and taxes, Djokovic suddenly looks like a certainty when confronted by the moment.

Federer, the ultimate artist in sport, remains poetry in motion, but the narrative has turned somewhat gloomy in the traditional death throes of a sporting career as spectacular as the Swiss Alps.

The snowy peaks of Grand Slam success are suddenly shrouded in mist due to Djokovic, a rival who holds a 17-9 winning record against him since 2011. It seems like he has been deprived of more by one man rather than Old Father time.

At the age of 34, the brush strokes that carried Federer largely above and beyond the grasp of opponents ranging from Pete Sampras and Andy Roddick via Andy Murray and Juan Martin del Potro since he turned over Mark ‘The Scud’ Philippoussis to claim Wimbledon in 2003, have been smudged in recent times by Djokovic.

"I have self confidence. That doesn't fade away. I can run for four or five hours. It's not a problem. I'm going deep in slams right now. I'm having great runs."

There are lies, damned lies and statistics, but there is bluntness to the glaring truth that Federer’s game no longer stands up well to the brute force, consistency and variation that the Djokovic conundrum continues to throw up. In key moments, he also perhaps is mentally vulnerable in knowing the other guy has his number. And a bloke who could yet pass his own startling numbers.

For the 51 unforced errors made over the four sets in the face of such an onslaught, Federer should feel no shame. Djokovic played arguably the greatest tennis witnessed in the history of the sport in snaring the first two sets because he knew had to stamp his foot on the neck of an aggressive, swashbuckling foe.

His winners, hit over and again with monotonous regularity, are more technical, and not aesthetically pleasing as Federer in his pomp, but are every bit as incisive, clinical and devastating in rendering Federer more redundant than a club player. That it itself is a tougher mountain to scale than K2 yet Djokovic reached the summit in the opening hour. From then, it was downhill for Federer.

The Swiss has not won one of these get-togethers at the Majors since the Wimbledon semi-finals of 2012, the last of his 17 Grand Slams. His last win over Djokovic in a Grand Slam final was at the 2007 US Open.

Who comes off the best? The crowd pleaser or the winner?

Federer knows the answer to this having donned the same shoes as Djokovic on Rod Laver Arena back in 2005. In a riveting semi-final with the combustible Marat Safin, Federer held a match point in the fourth set only for the Russian playboy to recover with interest in winning the match in five.

Safin, the likeable underdog who had lost the final to Federer in 2004, ended Federer’s 26-match winning streak, and was almost canonised in Melbourne, a city of sporting spiritualists, for somehow usurping the artful Roger. He was forgiven for downing favourite Aussie sporting son Lleyton Hewitt in the final.

While Federer is suddenly a celebrated loser, even in Aussie where they traditionally only have time for winners, being cheered to the rafters after departing in second place, Djokovic has to deal delicately with post-match interviews laced with humility and decorum, acutely aware that he is not the man the crowd wish to see conquer the king.

In such a single-minded pursuit, when you can almost smell the sweat glistening off your opponent on the other side of the net and sense the eye-balls rolling in trying to read the serve, it is just you against the other bloke. Fans can’t fetch, retrieve and serve for you.

While Federer is rightly exalted for his adroitness and achievement, this is no time to fawn. Djokovic deserves more respect for his own body of work as he approaches an 11th Grand Slam and sixth Australian Open that would equal Roy Emerson’s record from the 1960s.

When Djokovic broke in the eighth game of the fourth set to set up the kill, the groans were palpable as he let out a huge roar. Zurich would have been more appreciative. At least Rod Laver Arena was not as hostile as Flushing Meadows in New York last September when every Federer winner was cheered to the high heavens as much as any of Djokovic's unforced errors on the slopes of the towering Arthur Ashe Court.

His persona and play deserve a better salute whatever happens in Sunday's final. Djokovic will perhaps only be appreciated for his full value when Federer no longer participates. Maybe he will be lionised like the king in future.

The king is dead, long live the king.