Roger Federer flew through the air for what seemed an eternity before slam-dunking a smash past a stunned Dan Evans.
Playing his first match in 179 days, Federer started with an ace down the T before easing past the world No. 66 from Britain, 6-3, 6-4 at the mixed team Hopman Cup in Perth, Australia on Monday.
"I was quite emotional when I walked on to be honest," Federer told reporters after the match. "It was better than I thought it was going to be."
Before this week, the former top-ranked Swiss played his last match at Wimbledon, losing in the semi-finals to Canadian Milos Raonic before ending his season to let his knee recover from surgery in February.
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Federer's stats in Perth looked pretty good: he slammed down 24 winners and made 20 unforced errors. He fired off 5 aces, never dropped serve and took 14 of 16 net points.
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Although Federer looked comfortable in the way he was striking the ball, he will add sharpness to his movement with more matches played.
Federer, the world highest-paid tennis player according to FORBES with $68 million in annual earnings, may have won a men's record 17 majors and is now 35 years old, he was never in doubt about wanting to come back.
"It depends also how you get hurt," he said in a courtside interview after his match, which was watched by 13,500 people, a record for a tennis match in the state of Western Australia. "I got hurt filling a bath for my children, it's not really the way I wanted to leave this game."
"After Wimbledon, I just had to pull the plug, it was too much on the knee. I'm happy I did it, I have no regrets. It's a long time, but it's quite enjoyable to spend amazing times with my family, with our friends,my parents and so forth," he said.
"Of course, you start missing tennis again and you can't be more happy to going back on the center court, taping your ankles, tying your shoes and walking out to that kind of welcome. It was definitely worth it to stay in the physio room and do all the fitness and training these last few months."
Although Federer last won a major at 2012 Wimbledon, he's still gunning for at least one more.
"I feel these days after all these years, it would be nice to win another one, of course. I'll even take two or three or four , you know. We'll see, it's tough at the top, a lot of good guys at the top, a lot of young guys coming up. The gap is definitely not very big. I'll give it a chance and we'll see what happens."
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