Young Aussie Thanasi Kokkinakis' injury woes have continued, with a pectoral injury ruling the 20-year-old out of next week's US Open. Kokkinakis, who has only played one match in 2016 due to various shoulder injuries, has fallen from a career high 69 to 841 in the rankings. The Australian fell in the opening round of the tennis event at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games to Portugal's Gastao Elias in two tiebreaks.
Kokkinakis' agent on the recent injury setback
"It's just bad luck," said Kokkinakis' agent, Rick Montz of Creative Artists Agency. "He finally got back on court after the stomach bug, he practised two hours in the morning, and then the second hit he was hitting some high forehands and he kind of felt it just a little bit. It's worse than a strain, so it's going to take a couple of weeks, probably, of not hitting, for that to heal," said Montz.
"He's probably going to go home for a couple of weeks and then come back and train for a while, play the last US Challengers and get a good three or four tournaments in before he goes home again to train for the Aussie summer. So it's frustrating; two steps forward, one step back, is the best way I can describe it," added Montz.
"He's in a good head space, which wasn't the case for a while," Montz said. "Thanasi played well enough at the Olympics to know that his shoulder's not really a problem, so I think the biggest benefit of being down there for him was it just really motivated him, because obviously he was down, and you go through all these emotions and he'd set that as a target. Went down there, hit the target and played all right and shoulder was 100 per cent," said Montz.
Asked whether he thinks his client would be able to play in Australia's Davis Cup tie against Slovakia in Sydney from September 16-18, Montz said, "I would be very surprised if he were able to play. However, knowing Thanasi, if there's a way to play for Australia, the will's there, and he's proven that," concluded Montz.