Roger Federer savored his first title on home soil, beating defending champion Fernando Gonzalez of Chile in the final of the Swiss Indoors tournament in Basel, Switzerland on Sunday.

The runaway world number one sealed the 6-3, 6-2 and 7-6 win to complete a journey from Basel ball boy to tournament champion.

"It's one of the most beautiful moments of my career and also one of the most important to me after Wimbledon," said Federer after winning his fourth successive title and his 11th of the year.

"Although I always wanted to? a professional tennis player, Inever dreamed as a ball boy that I would one day be the champion here.

"It's also my one thousandth day as world number one, so it's avery fitting day for this to happen."

Gonzalez has thus lost all nine of matches against Federer, including last week's 7-5, 6-1 and 6-0 defeat in the Madrid Masters final.

Federer broke Gonzalez in game six in the first set and surged ahead in the second by taking a 4-0 lead with two further breaks.

In the third set, Gonzalez showed more resistance to live up to his No. 7 spot in the world, managing two break points on Federer's serve when 2-1 up.

After the nine-time grand slam champion saved both, Gonzalez slung his racket across the court, and surrendered the tiebreak 7-3.

"It's always tough to play Roger, especially in front of his home crowd," Gonzalez said, "He's playing unbelievably, which is really good for the game -- even if it's not so good for the rest of us."

(Xinhua News Agency?October 30, 2006)