By Chris Oddo | Monday, January 19, 2015

 

Roger Federer breezed past Yen-Hsun Lu in straight sets to kick off his 2015 Australian Open bid in style.

Photo Source: Ryan Pierse/Getty

It was fast, it was furious it was Fedtastic.

Roger Federer’s 6-2, 6-4, 7-5 victory over Yen-Hsun Lu featured 57 winners, 9 aces and four breaks of serve from the world No. 2 as he cruised to victory in under two hours to set up a second-round matchup with Italy’s Simone Bolelli.

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Federer, who is bidding to become the first man in Open Era history to win five Australian Open titles, earned his 74th victory at the happy slam, and pushed his career record to 1001 and 227.

“I thought I was playing very well through the first couple of sets,” Federer said. “I think I was serving very well. I was 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.”

Though Federer would offer up a few break points to Lu, he saved all four that he faced and eventually broke open the third set with a break in the 11th game before serving the match out.

“I think conditions slowed down a bit,” Federer said of the tight third set. “Because of the coolness and the night coming in, I felt it was hard to generate stuff. It became a very interesting third set. Gave me, I think, a lot of information. Instead of sort 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.”

Playing in his 61st consecutive major, Federer improved his Grand Slam record to 280-45.

Many believe that Federer has a very difficult draw in Melbourne, as he is slated to face Andy Murray in the quarterfinals and Rafael Nadal in the semifinals, but the Swiss maestro says that the top half is pretty loaded as well.

“I don’t quite agree because [Kei] Nishikori has been playing really well, Stan [Wawrinka] is the defending champ and Novak [Djokovic] has played so perfect here the last few years. I don’t think it’s a fair comment, but everybody debates about the draw—I play in it and we’ll see what comes out of it.”