“Like when I reached 1000 previous year, it was a big deal for me”, Federer said of his milestone win. “Not something I ever aimed or looked for, but when it happens, it’s very special”. So it’s very nice.
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The other featured match on the men’s side on Day 5 was Australia’s own Nick Kyrgios against Tomas Berdych.
The four times champ wobbled quickly within the inter- battle once the 24-year old nicknamed “Infant Given” ripped his greatest impact of the grasp off to fully capture the 2nd collection under a shut top at Rod Laver Arena. He reached two major finals in 2015, losing them both to Novak Djokovic. Grigor gave Roger everything he could handle through the first 2 sets, but Roger cruised through the final two sets to advance to another round of 16. The top-seeded Djokovic was scheduled to play Andreas Seppi while six-time champion Williams took on Daria Kasatkina of Russian Federation.
Victoria Azarenka dispatched qualifier Naomi Osaka, 6-1, 6-1.
Williams next plays Margarita Gasparyan, who beat Yulia Putintseva 6-3, 6-4.
The Russian fifth seed eventually secured a 6-1 6-7 (5-7) 6-0 win over Davis after an inconsistent display on Rod Laver Arena.
“So I just have to be focused on what I have to do, like every match, to be aggressive and take every opportunities as I can”, Goffin said of his upcoming encounter.
When Grigor Dimitrov ended Andy Murray’s reign as Wimbledon champion with a no-nonsense quarter-final defeat at the All England Club in 2014, it supposedly heralded the arrival of the “generation next” in men’s tennis. “I played a quality player who took out Federer last year here and who has been on the tour for many years”.
“I had a need to make errors to get to be the participant I’m today”.
“In a way I would do it again the same way, with just some minor adjustments along the way”. He claimed the Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open titles.
Dominic Thiem (19), Austria, lost to David Goffin (15), Belgium, 6-1, 3-6, 7-6 (2), 7-5.
With the landmark victory, Federer also extends his record over Bulgarian 27th seed Dimitrov, dubbed “Baby Fed” because of the similarity in their playing styles, to 5-0.
Dimitrov needed treatment for an undisclosed ailment at times, but Federer didn’t cut him any slack – he lost in the third round here past year, his worst run at Melbourne Park since 2001.
“I don’t know, it’s very exciting, I must tell you”.
“If I think about it like: “Oh, I’ve been around the block, I’ve been to all these tournaments so many times”, that would seem quite heavy. I hope he’s OK”.
Sharapova also made her history on Friday with her 600th career victory against American Lauren Davis.
But as he contemplated his 300 wins – and you can bet that he can probably remember a good 280 of them in detail – Federer revealed that it had not all been easy in his early days.
Early on, Federer did everything just a little bit better than his opponent from both the baseline and up at net.
Belinda Bencic (12), Switzerland, def. Kateryna Bondarenko, Ukraine, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4.
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Last year’s WTA Newcomer of the Year beat 28th-seed Kristina Mladenovic 6-4 4-6 11-9.
