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. ...  Yeah, I wouldn't have guessed it would have been my first of 1,000, but it's great."

It would take him about three years to get the first 100 and then about a year and a half for each successive 100 -- a bit more or a bit less, depending on his success during the period. No player has contributed to that amount more than Andy Roddick, whom Federer has defeated 19 times -- more than any other opponent. Asked to pick the most memorable in a TV interview following this week's exhibition, Federer went back to a match against Roddick -- the Wimbledon final that went 16-14 in the fifth, with Federer recalling the captivating way he reached a record-breaking 15 Grand Slam titles and the attendance of legends such as Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Pete Sampras and Rod Laver.

Only two other players have reached that figure in the Open era, with Jimmy Connors holding the record with 1,253 wins and Ivan Lendl second with 1,071 wins. With Federer having just won a tour-leading 73 matches in 2014, Lendl's figure is clearly reachable, but Fed doesn't see himself catching Connors -- or pursuing him.

"It's not been a goal of mine to reach any of those guys. Next thing you know you're in the top three," Federer said. "Clearly at this point, I doubt that it's going to happen, but you never know. I have no idea, like I said, how long I'm going to keep on playing. The goal is to remain in the game as long as possible. For that I need to stay injury-free. I need to be hungry, motivated and all that. For the moment I am, so that's more of a concern than reaching that number."

And the 33-year-old Federer demonstrated that by the way he reached the 1,000-win mark, turning back two up-and-comers in 24-year-old Raonic and 23-year-old Grigor Dimitrov to win the title in Brisbane. And he didn't slow down even then, arriving in Sydney the next morning to do a publicity event and then play a charity exhibition against Hewitt to promote a condensed scoring format being used by Tennis Australia for recreational and amateur play.

But despite keeping the commitment with visible pleasure, he admitted that he would have preferred a break following the tournament. "Clearly, I'm hurting from the last four matches," Federer said following the exhibition, which was played at a relatively competitive level. "Usually after a final and a 1,000 matches you're like, 'Oh, that feels good.' And then next day, bang, you got to come on court and play Lleyton. It's not so easy.

"That's why I'm really looking forward to rest now. It's most important for me to recover now rather than actually practicing and trying to feel better."

That's because it's not like he's coming in fresh from the offseason -- which was hardly an offseason at all, as Federer relates. "I only had eight days off. Went back to practice; I went to India," he said, referring to his participation in the International Tennis Premier League (ITPL). "Was one-and-a-half, two days. Went back to practice, practiced with Thanasi [Kokkinakis] in Dubai. Went to Switzerland, played a charity match there with Stan [Wawrinka] for my foundation on the 21st, had Christmas at home, which was so nice. Then came back to Dubai, practiced there with [David] Goffin and then came here."

And he had also played right through the season, getting to the final of the ATP Tour Finals and then playing the Davis Cup final the following week. He may have played 1,000 matches, but they don't seem to be weighing him down. He will go into the Australian Open as one of the favorites, particularly since neither Novak Djokovic nor Rafael Nadal have looked formidable in their warm-ups at the Abu Dhabi exhibition and the Doha tournament.

Still, he plans to take a break following the Australian Open and is giving himself a lighter workload the week before the tournament. "The game is there and I'm feeling really good right now," he said. "I need to relax a little bit here, so I am going to take a couple days off.

Then he will be going for win No. 1,001 ... and counting.

"We're on to 2,000, right?" Federer joked.

He was kidding. But with his form and fitness holding up, there's little to keep the count from going upward.