Thanasi Kokkinakis n'est pas au mieux. Ce mercredi, l'Australien a été éliminé devant son public au deuxième tour de l'Open d'Australie 2025 dans un long match en cinq sets par le Britannique Jack Draper, 6-7(3), 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3. Mais au-delà de la déception d'avoir été battu alors qu'il menait deux sets à un et qu'il a servi pour le gain du match dans la quatrième manche, le 71e joueur mondial ressent surtout de la souffrance physique. En effet, ce dernier est blessé à l'épaule, au muscle pectoral. Et ce problème ne date pas d'hier.
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00:00Not good. Pissed. Even if I won, I wouldn't have been able to play the next match. I'm
00:10annoyed I still had a chance to win. Yeah, I'm angry.
00:16Shoulder's gone before the match, I just tried to tough it out. I was touch and go again
00:29to play this week. Just took a million painkillers to try and get through. I knew after I had
00:38some serious decisions to make and I'm going to miss some time. I just tried to kind of
00:42empty the tank today and for this week and see what I can do. I put myself in a winning
00:47position I didn't have enough to get over, so that's annoying. But, you know, playing
00:51through the first one, playing through that one, I just know like even if I win at what
00:55cost, I know I'm going to be out for a while I think. So, yeah, I'm pretty flat.
01:00Can you give us a little bit of detail into what the actual issue is? Is there a tear?
01:06Is there a strain? Where is it in the shoulder?
01:09There's a tear for sure. I'm playing with a crazy amount of scar tissue in there. It's
01:16something that every time I show a physio or a doctor or something, they're taken back
01:22by it. I've tried to sort it out for years manually, without surgery, just trying to
01:30do what I can. It's a reason why I can't back up big matches. My whole body's fine. It's
01:34just the same injury that I worked so hard on to try and get right and I still can't
01:39do it and that's the thing holding me back and I think it's one of the big things stopping
01:43me from being able to reach my goals. So, yeah, I've had a pretty bad pec tear there
01:48for a while. There's a lot of scar tissue build up and essentially I can't play back-to-back
01:53intense matches, no matter how much I train for it and try it. Yeah, it's very deflating.
01:58This is going to sound like a silly question given what you just said, but just for clarity,
02:02so you definitely won't play doubles?
02:05I don't want to. I feel like I'm letting him down, letting people down, but yeah, I don't
02:11know. I won't be able to lift my arm tomorrow, so we'll see. Unless we're both playing with
02:16underarm serves, it's looking pretty unlikely.
02:23It's obviously a difficult experience out there, but could you take something from the
02:27atmosphere that you were able to play in and what did you make of the whole occasion?
02:31Yeah, I mean, always incredible. I was very doubtful going out there, not because of my
02:37tennis, just I didn't want to pull out and let people down. I know it had been raining
02:42and they were waiting a while to come out and watch and I knew the energy would be incredible.
02:47It's why we train so hard and why we want to get out there and lay it all out there,
02:52but yeah, it's just a tough way to go out, for sure.
02:56Do you think they were the right side of fun or did you think they tipped over at times
03:02into being a bit rough?
03:03I mean, I played Great Britain in Manchester in Davis Cup and it was the same thing over
03:07there, so yeah, I think they were to be expected. I think they were great.
03:14Sorry, can I just clarify again with the injury? So you referred to it, the question was shoulder
03:20and you...
03:21The shoulder's fine, it's my pec.
03:22It's definitely the pec?
03:23Yeah.
03:24So the tear is definitely in the pec?
03:25Yeah.
03:26Okay.
03:27I don't know, if you guys, if you look back at the footage and see the physio massaging
03:31it, you tell me if you see a normal pec there. I'll be curious to see everyone's answer.
03:38When you say that you know you're going to have to be out for a while, do you have any
03:41idea how long it might be?
03:43I don't know. I'm going to speak to a bunch of experts after, probably tomorrow, as soon
03:48as I can clear my head and don't want to punch a wall and try and work out what's next. But
03:55yeah, it's clear that what I'm doing isn't working. It's a few tough decisions to make.
04:00I can keep doing what I'm doing now and hang around this ranking and have some good wins
04:04and a couple of good matches and show promise. But in the back of my mind, I know I can't
04:08progress deep in tournaments, so I try and get something done and give myself a crack
04:13at being where I think I could be.