‘DJ Kokkinakis’ talks time off Tour as he prepares to headline Adelaide’s main stage
Did 12 months away from the ATP Tour give Thanasi Kokkinakis the time he needed to discover his musical side? Well, sort of.
“It’s funny. I bought some DJ decks pretty early and played those for a month or two,” Kokkinakis told ATPTour.com this week in Adelaide, where he is continuing his comeback after recovering from surgery on his pectoral muscle. “Then I forgot about that and got addicted to PlayStation, which I used to play.
“I played a lot of NBA2K. I get pretty competitive there. I get online, get on the headset, and when people talk some rubbish to me, I give a bit back! So that was one way of me trying to be competitive.”
From Ugo Humbert’s dabbling on the piano to Yannick Noah’s pop career and Jannik Sinner’s collaboration with renowned tenor Andrea Bocelli, there is plenty of crossover history between the ATP Tour and the world of music. For his part, Kokkinakis does not think he will be making a similar move anytime soon.
“I’m a long way off [releasing a track], that’s probably post-career, I think!,” joked the 29-year-old. “I learned the basic fundamentals, but then taking a step up, I didn’t quite have the focus for it. We’ll see. It’s harder than I thought.”
On Monday, Kokkinakis will step on court at his hometown tournament, the Adelaide International, to compete in a tour-level singles match for the first time since his January 2025 Australian Open exit to Jack Draper. His first-round clash with Sebastian Korda will be a milestone moment for a player who has endured a testing 12 months.
[ATP APP]Last February, Kokkinakis underwent a radical surgery — rarely if ever carried out on a tennis player — after years of managing damaged tissue in his right pectoral muscle. As the ATP Tour moved on from Australia and carried on around the globe for the rest of the 2025 season, Kokkinakis stayed in Melbourne to embark on a rehab programme that did not guarantee any positive results.
“It’s definitely tricky. You get itchy feet a little bit, being in the same place,” said the former No. 65 in the PIF ATP Rankings, who won his only tour-level title so far in Adelaide in 2022. “Obviously it’s different being home [in Adelaide], which is okay, but if you’re in another place for longer, when you’re used to only being there for one or max two weeks when you’re on Tour, [it’s hard].
“I tried to stay busy with a lot of things. I did some commentary, a lot of sponsor stuff, so I was trying to stay active and stay busy. And then also my rehab and trying to get that right. That’s a full-time job as much as anything, so I was just trying to get myself back to a point where I could even be in the draw for this tournament and give myself a chance.”
While being unable to compete was naturally frustrating, Kokkinakis did not completely disengage with the goings-on in tennis across 2025.
“[I watched tennis] here and there. I wasn’t shying away from it, but I wasn’t following it closely all the time,” he said. “I was following basketball a lot. I love my NBA, but if the tennis was on, and it was a match I was interested in, I would watch. But I wasn’t watching everything that was going on.
“[I spoke to friends on Tour] a little bit. Mainly the Aussies, if they had a good result or something like that, I’d send them a message. Draper actually reached out as well, and obviously he’s going through a little bit of a tricky period now as well. So he was nice… But I wasn’t messaging people all the time. It was mainly the Aussies.”
[NO 1 CLUB]Kokkinakis is cautiously optimistic as he prepares for his comeback match against Korda, whom he was supposed to meet in the Adelaide quarter-finals a year ago before he withdrew due to his injury. Yet he is also realistic about the risk he chose with his surgery, in which he was given an Achille allograft to try to attach his pectoral muscle to his shoulder.
“Just being back and getting to this point is not even something I was sure of,” said Kokkinakis, who made his competitive return in doubles last week at the Brisbane International presented by ANZ, alongside Nick Kyrgios. “Now I don’t know if I can get through a match, or get through a couple of matches, I really don’t know, because I haven’t played. I’ve done everything training-wise to give myself a chance to be here and that in itself is a win.
“Being able to go out on court knowing I’ve done a bunch of work and now I’m just praying my shoulder is alright, that definitely makes it worth it. Then the next step is going to be how I back up and where I go from here. But [it is good] just being here and even just playing some practice sets, seeing some crowds and hearing cheering, and just being back feeling those nerves and that buzz. Seeing some cameras again on me while I’m actually playing tennis is definitely an adjustment.”
[NEWSLETTER FORM]