{"id":33070,"date":"2021-02-09T09:59:31","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T10:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=33070"},"modified":"2021-02-09T16:12:49","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T16:12:49","slug":"kokkinakis-emotional-after-snapping-six-year-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=33070","title":{"rendered":"Kokkinakis emotional after snapping six-year drought"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian star Thanasi Kokkinakis<\/a> has broken down in tears on court after claiming his first win at the Australian Open<\/a> since 2015.<\/p>\n

Kokkinakis' career has been cruelled by injuries since he broke through into the top 100 six years ago, with his current ranking of 267 his lowest since 2017.<\/p>\n

He was forced to retire hurt in his last appearance in Melbourne back in 2019, before missing the tournament all together last year, but marked his return with a 6-4 6-1 6-1 demolition job of first-round opponent Kwon Soon-woo.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old's victory was met with rapturous applause on Court 3, and Kokkinakis was overwhelmed with emotion after he sat down and soaked in the moment.<\/p>\n

"At 5-0 (in the third set), obviously I didn't want to think about the finish line, but I thought about it," he said.<\/p>\n

\"Thanasi<\/p>\n

"I felt this massive roar and massive cheer from the crowd and I just started tearing up.<\/p>\n

"There's just so much stuff behind the scenes to get back to that point that not a lot of people realise apart from my team and friends and family."<\/p>\n

Kokkinakis' ecstasy was a stark contrast to his countryman Jordan Thompson<\/a>'s agony after he was forced to retire hurt in his own first-round clash.<\/p>\n

After a sensational lead-up tournament<\/a> last week, Thompson was forced to withdraw in the third set with his opponent, Norwegian 24th seed Casper Ruud, holding a 6-3 6-3 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n

It was a bitterly disappointing result for the 26-year-old who had been looking to build on a fourth-round appearance in last year's US Open.<\/p>\n

\"Jordan<\/p>\n

"It's an unfortunate end to start off the year pulling out at your home Grand Slam," Australian tennis great Mark Philippoussis said on Nine's coverage.<\/p>\n

"Obviously he must be very uncomfortable with a lot of pain to pull out because he's normally a fighter fights until the very last point.<\/p>\n

"Ruud is a very tough player but it is someone he has beaten in the past and last time they played it was a five-setter."<\/p>\n

Through to the second round, Kokkinakis' task to advance further gets exponentially tougher with a match-up against Greek fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas on the cards.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian star Thanasi Kokkinakis has broken down in tears on court after claiming his first win at the Australian Open since 2015. Kokkinakis' career has […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33070"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33070"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33072,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33070\/revisions\/33072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}