Federer squandered 10 of his 13 break points, including five match points in the eighth game of the second set, but prevailed in 72 minutes. In his first tournament since a shock second-round exit at Wimbledon, the Swiss is playing with a new racquet, with a larger 98 square-inch frame, and is bidding to win his second ATP World Tour title of the season.
"I guess it’s to a degree some more getting use to, just to see how it reacts on every single shot," he said of his new racquet. "Clearly it reacts better to some shots. But it's important not to think of it the whole time, not to talk about it all the time, but more just sort of go with it, fight for every point, have the right mindset, be optimistic about playing here now and wanting to achieve a good result and that’s what I'm doing."
The 31-year-old Federer has a 31-4 event record in Hamburg, where he is playing for the first time since 2008. He won the title in 2002, 2004-05 and 2007 (d. Nadal) and finished runner-up in 2008 (l. to Nadal).
"I’m just still looking for the timing and the rhythm here, but the longer I stay in the tournament the more confident I am that I’m going to play better and better as the tournament goes on," he said.
Date: 18th July 2013, Source: ATP
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