1,000 wins not enough for Federer
— -- SYDNEY-- It's not easy to impress Roger Federer with tennis records, even his own. These days, almost every match, every tournament, yields some sort of statistical achievement.
But 1,000 match wins? That grabbed even his attention.
Especially when he returned to his hotel room Sunday and found big floating balloons, marking the number he had reached with a three-set victory against Milos Raonic in the final of Brisbane that evening. He stared at them, taking it in.
"It's just so long, and it looks so good, looks so great, so grand and everything," he said the next day, having barely paused before arriving in Sydney to play an exhibition match against Lleyton Hewitt.
Even on the court, it had seemed like a special occasion. "Yeah, it feels very different to any other match I've ever won, because I never thought about anything, reaching 500 or 800. All those numbers didn't mean anything to me, but for some reason, 1,000 means a lot because it's such a huge number," he said following the match.
Those 1,000 wins have come against 275 opponents across 28 countries in 18 years, according to the ATP, the incremental accumulation of a career better known for its 17 Grand Slams and 302 weeks at No. 1.
Looking back, Federer estimates he can remember "say 800" of them, and the first one like it was yesterday. "I do actually remember it quite vividly," he said, reminiscing. "I qualified in Toulouse in 1998 and played Guillaume Raoux first round. He came from Davis Cup in Israel, I remember, and he was totally tired.
"I played already great in qualifying. I beat him 6-2, 6-2 and he looked so tired. I totally took advantage of it. Then ended up winning my second match against Richard Fromberg, I remember, in the second round.
"That was a breakthrough tournament for me. ... He was kidding. But with his form and fitness holding up, there's little to keep the count from going upward.
