Thanasi Kokkinakis to unwind with WWE on Playstation after three-hour thriller in Adelaide

Thanasi Kokkinakis has a busy night ahead of him after thrilling his home fans at the Adelaide International, promising to unwind with a little WWE after wrestling past Tomás Martín Etcheverry in a third-set tiebreaker.

“My recovery will look like a bit of ice. I’ll get on some WWE on Playstation and do some tag-teaming with the boys, I think!” admitted the Aussie after knocking out the eighth-seeded Etcheverry, 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (4) in just over three hours.

“I’ll try to get some sleep; it’s a little tough with the adrenaline. But I’ll play some WWE and try to rest the eyes a bit!”

Kokkinakis has a special K relationship with WWE, who famously celebrated his 2022 Australian Open men’s doubles win by presenting Kokkinakis and partner Nick Kyrgios with custom championship belts.

“Someone put me through a table already,” Kokkinakis joked upon receiving the present ahead of that year’s Miami Open.

The 28-year-old Adelaide native will hope to draw even more crowd support during a blockbuster quarterfinal clash with No. 2 seed Sebastian Korda, who won all three matches against Kokkinakis—including a near-miss at the Mubadala Citi DC Open last summer.

“I had match points on him in Washington and he shanked a ball past me on the line and won the match and the tournament,” said Kokkinakis, currently ranked No. 77 on the ATP rankings. “So, that one I still kind of got demons about, to be honest.”

Korda and Adelaide’s top seed Tommy Paul both advanced through their second-round matches earlier in the afternoon, Korda easing past Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, 6-3, 6-3, while Paul shook off a second-set hiccup to defeat Manuel Guinard, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.