Defending champion Roger Federer opened his bid for a record sixth Cincinnati title with a 6-3, 7-6(7) win over German Philipp Kohlschreiber on Tuesday night at the Western & Southern Open.
"I think it was a match where I had to sort of just fight to come through and hope get over the finish line sort of thing," he said. "I was playing really well at times, and then sometimes it was maybe a bit up and down. But assessing the performance overall, I'm very happy. It's good to be back and playing pain free. My mind's good. I was in a good place while I was playing, so it felt nice to win at the end."
The 32-year-old Swiss, making his first appearance since a loss in his Gstaad opener (l. to Brands), raced through the opening set in 32 minutes. He double-faulted to give Kohlschreiber a break at 4-2 in the second set, but got back on serve in the next game. After saving a set point for Kohlschreiber at 7-6 in the tie-break, Federer capitalised on his second match point opportunity to improve to a 7-0 mark against the German.
After trying out a larger racquet in Hamburg and Gstaad, Federer returned to one with a 90 square-inch head and said he'd be playing with it through the US Open.
"I'm going to do more racquet testing when I have, again, some more time after the US Open," he said. "I was playing for a month with the black one, but it's a prototype. At the end, I just felt like, you know what, right now I feel like I need to simplify everything and just play with what I know best."
Last year, Federer became the first player in the Open Era to win the Western & Southern Open title five times. He has a 31-7 tournament record, and will play the winner between 11th-seeded German Tommy Haas and Spaniard Marcel Granollers in the third round.
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