Roger Federer scored his 1,100th tennis victory by beating Yuichi Sugita of Japan 6-3 and 6-1 in the first round of the Halle Open, where he is looking for his ninth title.
After losing in his Stuttgart Open debut to Germany’s Tommy Haas last week, Federer is playing the Halle Open in Germany as preparation for Wimbledon, where he will try to win his eighth trophy.
This season the Swiss star has only lost twice in 22 games. Tuesday, he defeated Sugita, 66th in the world, in 52 minutes. He will now face German Mischa Zverev, who beat Poland’s Lukas Lacko 6-4 and 6-4, in the second round.
The win over Sugita marked his 55th victory in Halle, where he has won eight trophies, more than in any other scenario.
Federer won 20 of 24 points played on his serve in the first set. That first set close sparked a run of seven straight games for the 2015 champion.
Federer forced the Japanese to counter off his back foot when he wasn’t speeding around the greener edges of the lawn chasing down drives. The Swiss star was also impeccable in his first serve and lost only 11 service points in total, 5 of them in his last serve game when Sugita broke it.
Federer served 69 percent, hit eight aces and won 26 of 29 first-serve points. He also won more than 50 percent of the points when the Japanese served and broke his serve in five out of 13 opportunities, so his victory was never in doubt. Federer had 19 winners when serving, while Sugita hit just nine.
Federer is now second on the ATP all-time wins list, surpassed only by American Jimmy Connors with 1,256. He is followed by Czech American Ivan Lendl with 1,068.
