It’s the court of King Roger at Indian Wells

Most of the time, Roger Federer is the Muhammad Ali of tennis. Against the best competition in the world, he floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee.

Then there are those times, such as Sunday, when he also flutters.

Federer is a majestic figure, No. 1 in the world for a total of 273 weeks, owner of a record 16 Grand Slam titles, usually as unbeatable as he is revered.

He is a legend before his time, because his time appears to have plenty of ticks left on the clock. At 28, he is about three months away from tying Pete Sampras’ record of holding the men’s No. 1 ranking for 286 weeks. He floundered a bit in 2008, gave up the top ranking for a while, then got it back while winning two more Slams and getting to the final of the other two in ’09.

He is seeded No. 1, obviously, at this year’s BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. He began the year with yet another major title, beating Brit Andy Murray in the Australian Open final.

So when he took the court Sunday for his first match, in the late afternoon shadows of a perfect desert day, the place was as packed as it will ever be for a late-day match this early in the tournament. They surrounded him in the 16,100-seat stadium, many squinting down from the high sections and into the descending sun.

They didn’t come so much to root as to gawk. If tennis had a nomination for eighth wonder of the world, Federer would be it.

It had been an eventful day on the men’s side of the draw, even before Federer stepped on court.

Two unseeded Americans, James Blake and little-known Michael Russell, eliminated seeded players. Blake beat No. 13 David Ferrer of Spain, 6-1, 6-4, and Russell beat No. 32 Igor Andreev of Russia, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2. Andy Roddick, seeded No. 7, beat qualifier Yen-Hsun Lu of Taiwan.

Not as fortunate was fifth-seeded Russian Nikolay Davydenko, who has struggled with a bad wrist all season and withdrew from the tournament Sunday after an MRI exam finally showed that the wrist was broken. Also having a bad day were the Bryan brothers, Bob and Mike of Camarillo, top-seeded in doubles but beaten by Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic and Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany.

All that served as stage-setting for Federer, whose grand entrance was withheld for nearly three hours as Maria Sharapova was upset in the preceding match on center court.

Federer’s straight man this time was Victor Hanescu of Romania, a tall, hard-hitting baseliner, who had played Federer four times previously and had yet to win a set.

As if on cue, Federer ran off to a quick lead and won the set, 6-3, winning 20 of 21 points on his serve.

That was the float-and-sting Roger. The fluttering Roger showed up in the second set, spraying shots, failing to convert break points and looking somewhat fragile in the 7-5 tiebreaker won by Hanescu.

Then the fragility disappeared in the third set, as Federer gobbled up Hanescu, 6-1. It was almost as if Federer had glanced at his watch and realized he had a dinner reservation.

But it’s not so easy to just win and run off, if you are Roger Federer. When the match ended, they carted out a table and put three huge crystal trophies on it, all three for Federer. One was for being player of the year in ‘09, an obvious choice. Another was for being selected the top practitioner of good sportsmanship on the tour, his sixth such selection.

The third, especially fitting this day, was for his seventh straight selection as tennis’ fan favorite.

He said all the right things on court to show appreciation for those fans, and he echoed that later in his news conference.

He even got off a verbal sting-like-a-bee moment in that news conference when asked the inevitable about the verbal sparring and tense moments between Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi in Friday night’s charity event.

“I’m a father now,” Federer said, “so I thought about giving them a timeout.”

For a man who has hit most of the lines his entire career, it was just another successful shot.

bill.dwyre@latimes.com