Kokkinakis set for surgery as Open doubles dream dashed

Jan 17, 2025, updated Jan 17, 2025
Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios during their match against James Duckworth of Australia and Aleksandar Vukic of Australia in the first round of the men's doubles at the 2025 Australian Open. Photo: Mike Frey-Imagn Images/Sipa USA.
Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios during their match against James Duckworth of Australia and Aleksandar Vukic of Australia in the first round of the men's doubles at the 2025 Australian Open. Photo: Mike Frey-Imagn Images/Sipa USA.

Thanasi Kokkinakis expects he’ll have to have surgery on a debilitating pectoral injury that dashed his hopes of repeating his stunning Australian Open doubles success with Nick Kyrgios.

Kokkinakis defied doctors’ orders to rekindle his partnership with Kyrgios — which produced a memorable Open title three years ago — at a packed John Cain Arena on Thursday night.

But the 28-year-old was clearly hampered and lasted little more than an hour  before pulling the pin, with the ‘Special Ks’ trailing fellow Australians James Duckworth and Aleksandar Vukic 7-5 3-2.

The disappointing scenario came 24 hours after Kokkinakis battled through the injury in an epic five-set singles defeat to Jack Draper.

“The doctor advised me not to play and I’m going to need to do a serious procedure now, probably,” a shattered Kokkinakis said after the doubles loss.

“I’ve got to speak to as many experts as I can, but I can’t serve, I can’t hit a high forehand and I’m in a lot of pain.

“I wanted to come out here, I know there was a lot of talk about us playing again. I wanted to see if I was somewhat competitive, even without a serve.

“I just wanted to get on court again with the big fella.

“Such great memories and we had a big crowd, we knew, waiting for us.

“Any other event, any other circumstance, I’m not stepping foot on court, for sure.”

Kokkinakis’s booming serve was drastically reduced as he toiled alongside Kyrgios, who was also battling an abdominal injury that initially threatened to prevent him playing this week.

There was a sense of inevitability about the injury getting the better of Kokkinakis, especially after the pair dropped the first set.

“I knew it was going to happen,” Kokkinakis said.

“I was broken yesterday, I was serving restricted yesterday. It was tough.

“I knew coming into the event I was just going to leave everything out there.

“It wasn’t just my serve, it was my forehand, I was feeling pain.

“My arm’s essentially cooked. I need to fix it. It’s going to take some time.”

Kyrgios, who is no certainty to play at his home grand slam again, thanked Kokkinakis for having a crack and giving him another chance to perform on his favourite court.

The 29-year-old, who has battled injuries for most of the past two years, has flagged 2025 as his final season on the singles tour.

Duckworth and Vukic will meet another Australian pair, wildcards Luke Saville and Li Tu, in the second round of the doubles.

Teen pulls off sensation

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In the singles, teenage American Learner Tien pulled off the sensation of the Australian Open, taking out former finalist Daniil Medvedev in the early hours.

Tien, 19, outlasted marathon man Medvedev in an astonishing boilover, sending the three-time finalist spinning out of the tournament.

With the clock ticking towards 3am on Friday, the Californian teen, who’d looked down and out after the fifth seed made one of his trademark comebacks, found remarkable mental and physical reserves to pull off a 6-3 7-6 (7-4) 6-7 (8-10) 1-6 7-6 (10-7) triumph in 4 hours 49 minutes on Margaret Court Arena.

A healthy-sized, if bleary-eyed crowd, stayed on, transfixed by the drama as world No.121 Learner — given the memorable name by his maths teacher mum — ended up the teacher, giving a lesson in indefatigability to the out-of-sorts king of the stayers,  who’d earlier been in racquet-chucking mode again.

“I was definitely hoping it wasn’t going to go a fifth-set breaker,” smiled Tien, who’d won his first grand slam match only a couple of days earlier but is now the youngest American man in the third round in Melbourne since 18-year-old Pete Sampras in 1990.

“Either way, just really happy to get a win. I know I made it a lot harder than maybe it could have been … but, whatever!”

In the third-set tiebreak, the young southpaw had a match point but Medvedev snuffed it out with an ace. Tien appeared so deflated after the Russian took the set that it felt no surprise when he was outplayed comprehensively in the fourth. There looked no way back.

But Tien revealed afterwards the reason for his poor performance in that penultimate stanza was actually all down to an urgent need for a bathroom break.

It was the match of the championship, an extraordinary, fluctuating contest that, surreally, even got interrupted at 2.30am by a six-minute rain stoppage at the most critical juncture with Tien serving at five-all, 15-all in the decider.

When they returned, Medvedev broke to serve for victory at 6-5. Tien went for broke against the overly conservative Russian, breaking back immediately and then, after trailing 6-4 in the match breaker, took victory two hours after his first match point.

“I’ve no idea what time it is but I’m sure it’s really late. Thanks you guys for staying out here,” he said, after winning six of the last seven points and watching Medvedev float one final return over the baseline that sealed his fate.

“I wasn’t trying to think of the match as anything more important than any other match I’ve ever played. I was just going to go out there, have fun, see what I could do,” Tien said later, as he chomped on a pepperoni pizza as his early-hours reward.

“It (the pizza) was either going to be celebratory or a binge-y, like, cope.

“It feels better it’s more celebratory, for sure.”

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