Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis have produced a vintage doubles performance to keep their hopes of winning the ATP Tour Finals alive.
After losing their opening match earlier this week, the Special Ks had to beat Ivan Dodig and Austin Frajicek to have any hope of making it out of the round robin stage into the semi-finals.
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They didn’t get off to an ideal start, losing the first set before Kyrgios in particular turned on the firepower, steering the Australian pairing to a 3-6 6-4 (10-6) comeback win.
Kyrgios took his game to another level late in the second set and went absolutely berserk, wildly revving up the crowd in Turin, Italy as the Special Ks forced a match-deciding tie-break.
Dodig and Krajicek led the tie-break 5-1 but Kyrgios and Kokkinakis rallied to win the last nine points of the match and seal a sensational comeback victory.
It sets up a nailbiting finish to the round robin stage in the Green Group.
Kyrgios and Kokkinakis may have to win their next match against Croatian duo Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic in straight sets to guarantee a place in the semi-finals on countback.
Earlier this week, Kokkinakis confessed the Australian Open doubles champions haven’t done a lot of training or preparation as a team.
“We definitely don’t practice doubles at all,” he told the ATP Tour.
“We don’t do any doubles drills or anything like that. Maybe it can be an advantage, maybe a disadvantage at times because we only do our own thing.
“I think we bring our singles strengths onto the doubles court. If we try and be doubles players instead of playing our (natural) game, it’s not going to come out too good for us. We’ll just play aggressive, serve big, and see what happens.
“I think we are going to continue to play singles on a doubles court and we balance out each other well. When the other one is down, we lift each other up. We both are captains at times whenever we need it.”
Kyrgios isn’t competing in singles at the ATP Finals because he just missed out on qualifying for the event as one of the top eight players of the year.
The 27-year-old would have been eligible to play if but the ranking points from his run to the Wimbledon final weren’t counted due to a standoff between tennis’ most prestigious grand slam and the ATP and WTA Tours.
Watch all the singles and doubles action match from the ATP Tour Finals in Turin on Kayo Sports.