By Alberto Amalfi
© digibet.info

(October 24, 2010) Grand Slam king Roger Federer played the role of the equalizer today. Federer scored a 6-4, 6-3 win over Germany's Florian Mayer to collect his 64th career title at the If Stockholm Open. The second-ranked Swiss equals Pete Sampras' career title total and is now fourth on the Open Era all-time title list behind Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe.

"It means the world to me to win this title. It’s always nice winning in a place like this with a tennis heritage and a lot of history,” said Federer, who was playing the ATP 250 tournament for the first time in a decade. "You never know when it's your last tournament, that's why you want to savor every victory."

It was the third title of the season for the 29-year-old Federer, who swept Andy Murray in the Australian Open final in January to capture his 16th career major championship. Federer defeated Mardy Fish to win Cincinnati in August. He was runner-up to Murray in the Toronto and Beijing Masters 1000 finals.

Quarterfinal losses to Robin Soderling at the French Open and Tomas Berdych at Wimbledon as well as Federer's inability to convert match points in losses to Marcos Baghdatis at Indian Wells, Berdych in Miami and Novak Djokovic in the US Open semifinals prevented Federer from contesting more finals.

"Sure the summer was somewhat disappointing, with earlier losses at the French and at Wimbledon," Federer said. "But I played amazing at the Australian Open and played great at Cincinnati. I just had a bad win-loss record this year in finals.In other years maybe I would have won seven titles already but here I am only with three and people are complaining, so it's the way it goes a little bit."

Competing for his first career title, Mayer broke first for a 4-3 lead, but Federer immediately retaliated, breaking back, holding and breaking again to take the final three games of the first set.

"I came up with some good tennis. I was down a break, had to scramble and battle back, but I found a way," Federer said. "Once I get the lead it's difficult for my opponents. When my game is on I can really play well. This was a really good week. I’m happy how I pulled up after back-to-back weeks, and I'm happy with how I'm playing."

Federer broke serve in the sixth game of the second seat, sealing a 63-minute win. It was his Federer's 52nd tour-level victory of the season and his second appearance in an ATP World Tour final in two weeks, following his loss to Murray in last Sunday's Shanghai Rolex Masters final.

"It's been a tough week. I came from Shanghai where I played five matches, then the jet lag and the whole thing, so to back it up with another win is great," said Federer.

The 47th-ranked Mayer fell to 0-3 in ATP finals following runner-up finishes in Sopot in 2005 (lost to Gael Monfils) and 2006 (lost to Nikolay Davydenko).