Kokkinakis pulls off epic five-set shock at Wimbledon

Thanasi Kokkinakis has pulled another of his epic five-set comeback wins out of the fire, recovering from four match points down to knock out 17th seed Felix Auger-Aliassime.

Kokkinakis completed his two-day, first-round contest against one-time Canadian wonder boy Auger-Aliassime with a 4-6 5-7 7-6 (11-9) 6-4 6-4 triumph.

The four-hour 38-minute duel followed two epic five-set triumphs for Adelaide’s marathon man at the recent French Open.

He has now gone the distance in five of his six grand-slam matches this year.

“I’d rather not keep playing five-setters,” Kokkinakis sighed with a rueful smile on court, to much laughter.

“It doesn’t help me going deeper into the tournament, that’s for sure.

“Thankfully, it is best-of-five, otherwise I wouldn’t have won many matches this year.”

But this one was particularly satisfying as the 28-year-old had only just returned from injuring his knee when slipping on the grass at Queen’s Club recently, and he was proud of how he coped with damp, difficult conditions.

On Tuesday night, the world No.93 had been on the brink of defeat in straight sets with Auger-Aliassime having held four match points in the tie-break.

But Kokkinakis edged the breaker, and after the match was postponed for the day at the start of the fourth, returned to take his chances on Wednesday.

Drizzle twice further held up the match before he prevailed to set up a second-round tie against French qualifier Lucas Pouille on Thursday.

As the match was held up, and the crowd murmured Kokkinakis said to Auger-Aliassime it was “evident” that not many in the crowd had played tennis before or understood the apprehension both men felt.

The Greek Aussie is right to be uneased about playing on wet courts, having injured himself two years ago when slipping on grass.

He also had another scare in qualifying at the Queen’s Club recently, which saw him decide to withdraw from the tournament rather than put his Wimbledon campaign in doubt.

“It just makes it pretty evident how little some crown members know about tennis,” he said.

“(They were saying), ‘It’s not raining, you go out there. You can move.’ I was like, “Alright. Have a go. Try to move on a slippery grass court.’ It is one of the hardest things, especially with me injuring myself at Queen’s and doing it a couple years back.

“I’m not going to let some muppet in the crowd dictate when I go back on the court. Whether it’s waiting two extra minutes so I feel more comfortable, it still is very slippery at times and it happened throughout the match where … you go out wide to a ball and it’s very green and you slip. Like ‘Hang on, there’s no not much point playing’.

“But definitely when it’s dry, my movement picked up and I started to feel more confident. I was walking on eggshells a little bit at the start but I started to get comfortable.”

With AAP