Athanasios “Thanasi” Kokkinakis (Greek: Αθανάσιος “Θανάσης” Κοκκινάκης (Thanasis); born 10 April 1996) is a Greek-Australian professional tennis player.
For the 2021 Australian Open, Kokkinakis was selected as a wildcard for the Men’s Singles Draw after two years of injury setbacks. He won his first main draw singles match at the Australian Open since 2015 against Kwon Soon-woo in straight sets before losing to 5th seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in a 4.5 hour, epic 5 set match.
Kokkinakis also qualified for the Miami Masters, where after beating fellow qualifier Shintaro Mochizuki, he lost in the second round to 29th seed Márton Fucsovics in a tightly-contested 3-set match.
He consistently made a string of quarterfinals at challenger events, reaching the stage in both Split events, the second event in Rome and the first event in Biella. He reached his first challenger final in almost 2 years, and won his first challenger title in almost 3 at the second Biella Challenger, beating Enzo Couacaud in the final.
After failing to qualify for the French Open, Kokkinakis’ next event was Nottingham, where he lost in a tight 3-set match to defending champion and top seed Dan Evans.
Kokkinakis was again given a wildcard into the tournament in Los Cabos, a tournament he had made the finals in 4 years prior. He would lose in the first round to Denis Kudla.
In July, Kokkinakis made the semifinals of another challenger in Lexington, beating Christian Harrison, Juan Pablo Ficovich, and top seed Jenson Brooksby before losing in the semifinals to Alejandro Tabilo in 3 sets. In September, he reached the final of a second Challenger for 2021 at the 2021 Sibiu Open where he was defeated by Stefano Travaglia.
source: wikipedia
