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“I simply need to go for an ice tub proper now, that’s all I’m considering,” mentioned Tsitsipas after the four-hour 32-minute battle.
“Thanasi is a superb competitor and an excellent fighter. It was very tough dealing with him right now.
“He wasn’t in a position to play all these years on account of accidents that he had, and it was an enormous disgrace as a result of we have been lacking somebody who was not there with us on the tour. I’m very joyful to see him again competing at a really excessive stage.”
It was a heroic efficiency from Kokkinakis, who hadn’t performed in a Grand Slam since US Open 2019. However Tsitsipas banked on his expertise to scrape via.
Tsitsipas is Greece’s most profitable tennis participant in historical past, and was pumped for his first assembly with Kokkinakis, a South Australian with Greek roots ranked 267 on this planet.
The 22-year-old Tsitsipas made waves in Melbourne in 2019 when he defeated Roger Federer en path to his first Grand Slam semifinal. He returned to the last-four stage of a significant at Roland Garros 2020, and is hoping to interrupt that barrier and make his first slam last this fortnight.
Like Tsitsipas, Kokkinakis has a victory over Federer on his resume (in Miami 2018). However a sequence of great accidents have plagued his profession, and he arrived in Melbourne this 12 months having performed simply six tour-level matches in 2019 earlier than sitting out all the 2020 season.
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