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 and transform a miserable, rainy day at Wimbledon for Australia. After the fancied Jordan Thompson got knocked out tamely and Aleksandar Vukic felt the brilliance of champion Carlos Alcaraz in second-round defeats on Wednesday, 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. In doing so Kokkinakis helped create an extraordinary piece of Wimbledon history.
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today He is the eighth man to come back from two sets to love in the first round at Wimbledon, the most ever in the Open Era. It followed two similar epic five-set triumphs for Adelaide’s marathon man at the recent French Open, including a comeback from two sets down against Italian Giulio Zeppieri, and meant he’s now gone the distance in five of his six grand slam matches this year. After the match, Kokkinakis was asked about playing the five-setters.
“I’d rather not,” he said with a 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.
The beauty of five sets is it’s a rollercoaster, with lots of momentum swings. You just have to keep playing and see what .
