Kokkinakis hopes to debut 'The Special K's' with Kyrgios at Wimbledon

Saturday, 21 May 2022 at 17:15

Updated at Monday, 14 October 2024 at 17:34

Kyrgios Nick Wimbledon2022 MartinSidorjak14

byAlex Waite

Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios stunned crowds with their Australian Open doubles title win in January, and the two are now targeting further success at Wimbledon.

Kokkinakis and Kyrgios joined forces at Melbourne Park, and the Australian duo raced to the final, dropping just two sets in the process. The long-term friends turned doubles team then defeated Matthew Ebden and Max Purcell in straight sets in the final for their first-ever doubles title.

However, Kokkinakis and Kyrgios don't seem content with just winning one Grand Slam trophy and the pair have now set their eyes on another major triumph at Wimbledon, which might be reduced to an exhibition.

The Australian pairing played together in the Boys' Wimbledon event nine years ago and won the competition. It has been a meteoric doubles rise for the entertaining pairing, who have been friends since childhood.

When speaking about the future of the self-proclaimed 'Special K's' Kokkinakis sounded hopeful about featuring at Wimbledon and further competitions in 2022.

"So we won’t be playing at Roland Garros, but we’ll see what happens at Wimbledon – I’m hoping to play with Nick at Wimbledon. And, hopefully, we can also play some Masters at the back end of the year. That should be fun."

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Despite the swell of enthusiasm around how far Kokkinakis and Kyrgios could go at Wimbledon, the duo are untested at the top level of doubles. The Special K's have only played in three competitions together, while other teams consistently compete at high-level tournaments.

In addition, Kokkinakis was eager to state that the Australian team are actually singles specialists and both players have aspirations to achieve success on the ATP Tour.

Currently, Kokkinakis is ranked 85th in the official ATP standings, while Kyrgios is also outside the Top 50, having not played since the Houston Open in April.

"We’ll just play it by ear. It’s definitely not our focus, but we’ll play doubles where we can. We’re both singles players who happen to have had a couple good weeks in doubles, so we’ll see what happens."