"It was do-or-die point": Thanasi Kokkinakis opens up on the groundbreaking surgery that saved his career

Thanasi Kokkinakis recently spoke about the difficult injury he suffered at the beginning of the season, which forced him to undergo surgery. The Australian took a great risk by going through the operation in an attempt to repair a pectoral muscle tear that had plagued him for years.

From a young age, Kokkinakis was highlighted as one of the talents to watch in the future, but now, at 29, he has not fully met expectations. Alternating great matches with unexpected defeats—in addition to constant injuries—the Australian made the decision to have surgery despite the inherent risk.

“The surgery I did, it’s risky, no tennis player has ever done it,” he said. “A few surgeons didn’t want to do it, but I had to take a chance and bite the bullet if I wanted to have a crack at the rest of my career."

“This is my toughest injury I’ve had yet, and it will be my toughest recovery. I’m still optimistic, hopeful that I’ve made the right decision, but yeah, it hasn’t been easy and when you speak to surgeons and tennis players and no one’s seen this injury or had a surgery like this before in tennis, pretty daunting, but I knew I had to have a crack and yeah, why not be the first?”

The surgeons transplanted part of his Achilles tendon to the damaged area. Kokkinakis himself admitted that without the surgery, his career would likely have ended. “Yeah, I think so. I could have played one match a week the rest of my career, but in tennis, you can’t do that; you have to be able to string together back-to-back if you want to make any inroads in your career or ranking. So, yeah, for me, it was at a do-or-die point, I was like, I can’t keep going like this. It was mental torture,” he said.

His last appearance was at the 2025 Australian Open, where he had an exciting match against Jack Draper, eventually falling in 5 sets. He also played doubles with Nick Kyrgios but they retired mid-match in the first round.

A year after his last appearance, Kokkinakis is finally fine-tuning his return to the courts during the Australian swing, with the goal of reappearing at the Australian Open [2026]. The former World No. 65 revealed that he is focusing on his serve ahead of the challenges of the 2026 Tour.

“The most complicated thing is the serve; it’s what I’m working on the most to recover. We’ll see. My goal is to return to the circuit in 2026. I am enjoying this moment, restarting from scratch, playing without pain, something I almost never could do in my career.”