Kokkinakis delivers Kyrgios perfect wake-up call

Kyrgios opted out of watching the full four hour, 38 minute five-set, second-round victory over Stan Wawrinka at the French Open, heading to bed just after midnight in Australia with a message of hope.

“Going to bed, I don‘t want to wake up and see Kokki lose another thriller please,” he tweeted.

But a loss was never in Kokkinakis’ mind and he clawed his way back after losing the first set to claim the next two, before Wawrinka took the match to a fifth.

That’s when the resurgent Aussie turned on the power to take a 3-6 7-5 6-3 6-7 (4-7) 6-3 victory which came with a message for his mate Kyrgios.

“Hopefully he can wake up a bit happier now – I definitely will be,” he said.

“They‘re the fun ones, they’re what you play for. Against legends who make it really tough on you.”

“You can‘t count these guys out no matter how old they are. They just play. They get better and better, and you can see why they are multiple grand slam champions.”

Kokkinakis conceded he had to remove all doubts from his mind when Wawrinka seemingly took control of the game in the fourth and sent the match to a deciding fifth set, as thoughts turned to a six-hour capitulation against Andy Murray at the Australian Open.

“When he was coming back in the fourth set, and the crowd was going nuts, I was, like, ‘oh, God, it’s one of these ones again … oh no, it’s happening again’. The amount of rubbish that goes through your head…

“I was, like, ‘40-Love, I’ve got a bit of a cushion, stay focused’. It went back to deuce. I was, like ’oh, no’. The crowd was going nuts. ’I can’t lose another one of these’.”

It all lead to a “crazy” ending as Wawrinka, with the crowd on his side, forced Kokkinakis to dig deep to earn his way to the third round.

“Yeah, definitely a pretty crazy ending. But, I‘m happy with how this movie ended,” Kokkinakis said.

The 27-year-old now faces Russian foe Karen Khachanov, the No.11 seed, in the third round.