Kokkinakis speaks out on 'obvious' Tomic tanking

Thanasi Kokkinakis has revealed he expected ‘something strange’ out of his US Open qualifying match with Bernard Tomic.

The Australian duo played off in the first round at Flushing Meadows on Wednesday AEST but the contest descended into a relative farce.

Tomic won the first set 6-3 but backed it up by losing nine consecutive games, causing tanking accusations to storm in once again.

The world No.192 Kokkinakis tightened up before securing a 3-6 6-0 6-3 win to move through to the second round of qualifying.

Quizzed by Sport360 on his opponent’s mid-match slowdown, the 22-year-old said Tomic’s performances didn’t help his case for respect in the tennis world.

“A lot of the times, he makes it a little more obvious than other people, but a lot of the times players do that when you get on top of them,” Kokkinakis said.

“Maybe they’re not doing it as obviously as he does, but sometimes they go away and you just sense that as a player.

“But sometimes that makes you more nervous because you’re like, ‘this guy is going away, I just have to put the ball in’, but sometimes you get a bit tight and all of a sudden they get back in the match. It’s tough but I’m happy to get through.”

The South Australian’s coach Todd Langman expected little in the way of fitness from Tomic, who retired from his last match – a first-round qualifier at the Canada Masters – earlier this month.

Kokkinakis himself was wary about his opponent’s tennis smarts in combination with Tomic’s desire to save himself.

“I was kind of expecting something strange, playing Bernie, it’s obviously weird playing a friend, and someone that plays like him,” Kokkinakis said of a countryman he last played at the 2015 French Open.

“I came out very average, he kind of takes the energy out of matches so it’s tough to keep your energy up. He’s a tricky player, he knows how to play the game.

“The three double faults didn’t help in my first service game and that kind of didn’t really get me going. Towards the end of the first set, I started to find a little bit of rhythm. Big hold first game of the second set and then I started to find it.”

Kokkinakis, who entered qualifying on the back of a Challenger title triumph 10 days ago, had Serena Williams’ coach Patrick Mouratoglou watching on alongside his coach and fitness trainer.

The Australian continued to show off his renewed sense of optimism following another round of injuries earlier this year.

He will face No.15 seed Yannick Maden in the second round of qualifiers on Friday morning AEST.

Meanwhile, the world No.153 Tomic won’t be out of action for long.

He’s scheduled to take part in the new Challenger tournament hosted by Rafael Nadal’s Mallorca academy next week.