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A crestfallen Thanasi Kokkinakis will consult with medical specialists to see if a solution can be found to the pectoral problem that is threatening to cruel his potential.
The Australian charge at Roland Garros ended when Kokkinakis fell painfully short of forcing 11th seed Karen Khachanov to a deciding set in their third-round match on Friday night.
It was clear the chest muscle, which the South Australian badly injured in 2019, had flared midway through the 6-4 6-2 3-6 7-6 (7-5) loss to Khachanov.
Kokkinakis competed with vigour and held a set point to force a deciding set when serving at 5-4 in the fourth but ultimately failed to back up 100 per cent physically from his near-five-hour victory two days earlier over 2015 Roland Garros champion Stan Wawrinka.
The 27-year-old said the muscle struggles to handle the intense workload that comes at grand slams and that surgery at some stage may be required to enable him to live up to his potential in majors.
“It’s just the same rupture I’ve had since 2019,” Kokkinakis said.
“I did it so bad that it’s tough for me to progress a little bit when I try to back up some deep matches,” he said.
“I know I’m going to be sore in my legs. I know I’m going to have little aches, stuff like that. But it’s just the one injury that … stops me a little bit.
“I’m going to get a little bit of other advice, maybe some surgical stuff, and see what the result is, because I’m always limited a little bit when I try and back up matches.
“It is probably not the first or second match, but it’s sort of third and fourth onwards kind of affects me a lot.”
Despite matching his best result at a major, Kokkinakis was dejected after falling on the wrong end of another thriller.
He surrendered a 4-2 lead in the first set and was well beaten in the second, but rallied strongly from midway through the third stanza against Khachanov, a semi-finalist at the past two grand slams.
The Adelaide native held a point to force a deciding set when serving at 5-4, but made a forehand mistake when too aggressive. He then double-faulted to give the Russian a chance to level the fourth set.
Kokkinakis led the tiebreaker 4-1 but conceded momentum with a couple of errors and, despite saving one match point in remarkable fashion, he slipped to the ground on the second when shaping to hit a forehand.
“I think you’ve got to think about it, to try and realise what went wrong and how to deal with that the next time around,” he said.
“It’s the same way I’ve lost big points. Me being kind of ultra-aggressive and trying to not let my opponent dictate, because I don’t want them to dictate on the big points.
“I want to have it in my own racquet. But then there’s the balance of trying to over-press. So that’s the tricky part.
Thanasi Kokkinakis reacts after losing to Karen Khachanov. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)
“But I’ll definitely speak to them and decompress a little bit. (I’m) not going to let it linger too much.”
Kokkinakis will move to a ranking in the mid-80s at the completion of the French Open, but the surge has come too late to earn direct entry into Wimbledon.
He will write to tournament organisers in the hope they recognise his rise through the rankings and his position on the ATP Tour Race in 2023, which sits in the mid-30s, and offer a wildcard.
On a day of high drama at Roland Garros, Novak Djokovic also advanced after a tough 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-5) 6-2 win over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina to reach the fourth round of the competition for a 14th consecutive year.
The clash on Court Philippe Chatrier was the longest three-set grand slam match of 22-time major champion Djokovic’s long and distinguished career, clocking in at 3 hours, 36 minutes.
But he wasn’t thrilled at how difficult things had been in the match, didn’t love double-faulting three times in a single game, and didn’t like the feedback coming from a portion of the fans.
After being two points from dropping the second set, trailing 5-4 in that tiebreaker, Djokovic grabbed control.
He took the next three points, each of which ended with an error by Davidovich Fokina, before punching the air, spinning around, throwing an uppercut, holding his right fist aloft and roaring.
That drew some unfriendly noise from some in the crowd. More displeasure with him was expressed a moment later, when the chair umpire announced Djokovic was taking a medical timeout.
Sitting in his chair with his shirt off and a white towel around his shoulders, Djokovic heard the negativity and responded with gestures.
He waved a hand, as if to say, “Give me more!” He gave a sarcastic thumbs-up and nodded. He applauded. He shook his head and chuckled.
“At times, you know, I will stay quiet. Not ‘at times’ – actually, 99 per cent of the time, I will stay quiet,” said Djokovic, who won the French Open in 2016 and 2021 and is seeking a 23rd major championship to break his tie with Rafael Nadal.
“Sometimes I will oppose that, because I feel when somebody is disrespectful, he or she deserves to have an answer to that. That’s what it is all about,” he said at the post-match conference.
“A majority of the people come to enjoy tennis or support one or the other player. But they are individuals.
“There are people – there are groups or whatever – that love to boo every single thing you do.
“That’s something that I find disrespectful and I frankly don’t understand that. But it’s their right. They paid the ticket. They can do whatever they want.”
It was a day for long matches with Italian Lorenzo Sonego fighting back from two sets down to defeat seventh-seed Andrey Rublev, while Austrian qualifier Sebastian Ofner saw off Fabio Fognini in five sets.
© AAP
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