Australian Open

Federer relieved to claim win No.1001

ESPN staff

January 19, 2015

Federer sails through in Melbourne

Roger Federer was made to work by a spirited Yen-Hsun Lu as he eventually eased into his new millenium at the Australian Open.

The second seed secured the 1001st win of his career with a straight-sets victory over Lu, seeing off the world No.47 6-4 6-2 7-5.

"I'm very pleased to make this one here tonight," Federer said with a smile. "Winning first round, it's always a bit of a relief. I thought I played good.

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"It was nice to get 1001 here now tonight. We're not going to talk about this every single match now, right? Let's just keep it to this one."

Federer claimed his 1000th career win with victory over Milos Raonic in the Brisbane International final a fortnight ago and, while the four-time Australian Open champion booked his place in the second round in Melbourne, it was not without resistance from Lu.

Far from rolling over against the Swiss veteran, Lu did at least provide Federer with a decent hitting session, occasionally taking him into tie-break territory before the 33-year-old found another gear to avert the danger.

"I was playing very well through the first couple of sets," Federer said. "I was serving very well and holding my service games very comfortably. Until probably 5-2 in the second set was the first time he had any play on my service game. I was very happy.

"He started to serve better in the third [and] conditions slowed down a bit. Because of the coolness and the night coming in, I felt it was hard to generate stuff. It became a very interesting third set.

"Instead of just steamrolling through him he really made it tough for me. I don't want to say I got lucky to not be broken early on in the third, but he was playing some really good tennis.

"I started to mix it up and trying out things because I had to, I felt, towards the end of the third. I started to serve better myself again towards the end of the match and adjusted to the conditions, because it did play different at 7:00pm than it did at 8:30pm.

Federer goes on to face Simone Bolelli in Wednesday's second round action after the Italian defeated Argentina's Juan Monaco in straight sets.