Thanasi Kokkinakis: 'I give myself a chance against Rafael Nadal for sure'
Thanasi Kokkinakis feels ready to face Rafael Nadal in the US Open second round on Thursday following his first round win over Ilya Ivashka.
The Australian player said: "I know I have the capabilities to beat these good players. I'm just going to go out there and treat it like any other match and play aggressive and play my game. I definitely think I can do some things. That's kind of what's kept me ticking. If I thought I had like a ceiling of maybe around 100 or 60 to 70 (in the world), if that's where I was going to play, then maybe I would have hung up my racquets for sure."
"I give myself a chance for sure. It's going to be tough - very physical but I'm ready for it. I know what he brings. I've seen him play enough, I hope. I'm going to play my game and see what happens. I've played a lot of lefties in my last tournament so just treat it like a better version of them. I'm going to give it a crack."
On how he has been dealing with injuries, Kokkinakis added: Obviously I feel like I've had a lot of my tennis career so far, to this point, taken away. I knew the first two sets, getting those under my belt was going to be big. Luckily I got the second set after I broke a string on set point. What are the odds? I've probably been playing for two hours and then on that point it breaks but, you know, that's tennis. It's definitely a massive relief."
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2Pyitab
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