2 months ago
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It was the moment when the on-court clowning around was cast aside.
Only minutes after a hard-fought doubles victory with great mate Nick Kyrgios – and while gobbling up the fanfare from an adoring Brisbane crowd – Thanasi Kokkinakis choked back tears as he reflected on another stint on the sidelines that cost him 12 months.
Kokkinakis had not played since last year’s Australian Open because of a serious pectoral injury that required revolutionary surgery, while Kyrgios has scattered only six singles matches across the past three years.
The battered-and-broken former teenage idols, who combined to win the most unlikely of Australian Open doubles titles in 2022, have long come to terms with their tennis mortality after a raft of injuries.
But for at least one night, and even if it was in a more humble setting than both have conquered many times, this 5-7, 6-4, 10-8 win over doubles specialists Matt Ebden and Rajeev Ram clearly felt better than most.
Kokkinakis is still not serving at full capacity – and may not for months – as he works his way back from a tennis-first operation where the surgeon reattached his pectoral muscle to his shoulder with the help of an Achilles tendon graft from a dead person.
It was the first match on the ATP tour in 167 days for Nick Kyrgios. Credit: Getty Images
“I’ve never really teared up from a doubles match. Even when we won [the Australian Open title], there was excitement, but it wasn’t, like, crazy. What I’ve gone through the last 12 months is crazy,” Kokkinakis said.
“No physio or doctor I saw was really comfortable and confident which was the right way to go, but I said I didn’t want to keep doing what I was doing. In the past, I played one match and maybe had a big win, then my arm was shot for the next couple of rounds.
“A lot of people do ACLs and Achilles ruptures, which are brutal, terrible injuries. But with those, a lot of people have had them, so you know who to speak to and what to do.
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“This one, I’m kind of gauging how we go … to be on the court, especially with Nick, was a special feeling. It’s been a very rocky road this [past] year, and I’m trying to take it one day at a time.”
A torrent of water has gone under the bridge since Kyrgios, now 30, beat Kokkinakis, 29, in the 2013 Australian Open boys’ final, and they are far closer to the end of their careers than the start. They guffawed as they barely believed their age while saying it out loud.
“I feel like my tennis journey has been so interesting, and anytime I’m able to add a little match like this to, I guess, the resume, or just get out there and play, it’s special,” Kyrgios said.
“I don’t really know what my plan is this year or what my future holds, either. I’m literally taking it day by day. When me and Thanasi play doubles together, we remember that this sport can be pretty fun, and it’s not always just injuries and competing and grinding.
“Every good thing that’s come in my life has come from this sport [but] it’s gone in a flash. I feel like we look at that 2013 [boys’ final], and it’s like, ‘That didn’t feel that long ago’. Now, I’m 30.”
Kyrgios has scaled greater heights – headlined by making the 2022 Wimbledon final among four grand slam runs to at least the quarter-finals – and been more controversial and polarising.
The former world No.13 has toppled all of Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray, which he is immensely proud of, while Kokkinakis famously upset Federer in Miami eight years ago.
But they have both been cruelled by injury.
Kokkinakis has more often shown vulnerability in public about his unfortunate fate, as he did on Sunday night, but Kyrgios has increasingly peeled back his combative exterior to admit how tough he found having tennis repeatedly ripped away from him.
“I can’t speak for Nick, but it’s memories like this, playing in front of crowds and seeing the joy that it gives people [that drives me to keep coming back],” Kokkinakis said.
“We love when we’re healthy, and being able to actually just play tennis and only worry about that. It’s a fun feeling, and we’ve done it our whole lives.
“I’m trying to do everything I can. I don’t want to go five years and be like, ‘I wish I gave it a little bit more of a crack’, or ‘I could have done something else a little bit’. While we’re somewhat able to keep going, I think we will.”
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