{"id":33566,"date":"2021-02-10T23:59:14","date_gmt":"2021-02-11T00:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=33566"},"modified":"2021-02-11T02:08:24","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T02:08:24","slug":"kokkinakis-surprising-snub-for-classy-federer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=33566","title":{"rendered":"Kokkinakis' 'surprising' snub for classy Federer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roger Federer<\/a> may not be in Melbourne for the Australian Open<\/a> but the giant of the sport made his presence felt on Monday with some touching words of support for Australia's own Thanasi Kokkinakis.<\/p>\n

Kokkinakis captured hearts with an emotional first round win over Korean Kwon Soon-woo, bursting into tears on the court after claiming a 6-4 6-1 6-1 victory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Watch the Australian Open with live streams of every court at 9Now. Click here to start watching!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

"I felt this massive roar and massive cheer from the crowd and I just started tearing up," Kokkinakis told media after the match.<\/p>\n

\"Kokkinakis<\/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

One such friend is Federer, who invited Kokkinakis to Dubai on several occasions for off-season training blocks when the Aussie was a rising star, spoken about in the same breath as Nick Kyrgios.<\/p>\n

Kokkinakis rose to a world rankings high of 69 as a 20-year-old but thanks to a harrowing stretch of injuries he's slipped all the way down to a ranking of 260 and is once again on the comeback trail.<\/p>\n

For those who aren't intimately aware of what the 24-year-old has been through in his career, the list is painful reading. Knee, shoulder, back, groin, pectoral muscle – barely a muscle group or sinew has been spared, forcing Kokkinakis to constantly reset and rehab.<\/p>\n

So the outpouring emotion from the likeable Aussie was born out of years of heartache and frustration.<\/p>\n

Federer knows that only too well and in his classy way he reached out to Kokkinakis, sliding into his Instagram DMs<\/a> to leave a brief message that simply said: "Nice one Thanaser. Happy for you"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Yet when that screen shot was shared eagle-eyed observers noticed something unusual; Kokkinakis doesn't follow the tennis icon on Instagram.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Wide World of Sports for The Morning Serve, Alicia Molik admitted she was "surprised" Kokkinakis wasn't a Federer follower.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/ByMarcMcGowan\/status\/1359105591721959424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a><\/p>\n

"It was only a couple of seasons ago Roger did invite Thanasi to be his practice partner in Switzerland, so I think the relationship extends quite far back and it's something Roger and Rafa actually do," Molik said.<\/p>\n

"They really look after that next crop of players and when I reference Thanasi in that light I mean when he was a teenager. So it's kind of nice to know that a few of those senior players have your back, they're interested.<\/p>\n

"Hopefully that gives Thanasi a boost for his next round as well."<\/p>\n

Kokkinakis faces a tough ask to progress to the third round, facing one of the favourites to upset Novak Djokovic to win the tournament, Greek star Stefanos Tsitsipas.<\/p>\n

It shapes as one of the feature matches of this afternoon, with both players boasting huge support, due to the large presence of Greek Australians in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

Kokkinakis and Tsitsipas are good friends off the court, adding an additional sub-plot to the clash on Rod Laver Arena.<\/p>\n

\"Australian<\/p>\n

"They are family friends, so it's a bit like Aussie versus Aussie," Molik said.<\/p>\n

"Although they play for different nations they know each other through and through. It's difficult, and for the crowd, although we're very familiar with the Greek crowd that come out and support their compatriots here, it just livens up the Australian Open so that's why I'll be watching, to see who the crowd actually are cheering for a lot more, it has to be Thanasi."<\/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<\/strong><\/em> clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roger Federer may not be in Melbourne for the Australian Open but the giant of the sport made his presence felt on Monday with some […]<\/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\/33566"}],"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=33566"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33568,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33566\/revisions\/33568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}