"Been struggling for a little while": Thanasi Kokkinakis underwent surgery to treat pectoral issue

Australia’s Thanasi Kokkinakis has revealed that he has undergone surgery to treat a pectoral issue. The 28-year-old has had a difficult time at the Australian Open and was eliminated early from the singles and doubles categories.

In the singles event, he was knocked out after losing to Britain’s Jack Draper in the round of 64 with a score of 6-7, 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3. In the doubles event, Kokkinakis was forced to retire in the round of 64, playing alongside Nick Kyrgios against the pair of James Duckworth and Aleksandar Vukic.

Kokkinakis has announced that he has undergone surgery to deal with the pectoral issue. He revealed the information in a post on the social media platform Instagram with a caption: "Been struggling for a little while with this. Probably my toughest challenge to date. I've been trying to find the answers to an ongoing pec injury that I haven't been able to fix. Let's see how this goes. Thank you for all your ongoing support."

Kokkinakis has been in the news this year for the wrong reasons after receiving a lot of criticism from the former doubles world number one Todd Woodbridge. He questioned the motives behind playing exhibition events. "Scheduling is a really interesting thing with him," said Woodbridge while talking at the Wide World of Sports' The Morning Serve. "At the back end of the year he's played Challengers and then he went and played exhibition matches that he didn't need to do. Yes, the money's great and we all love putting that in our pocket and that's exactly what he did, but that schedule hurts to start the year."

In response to that, Kokkinakis went public as well by stating that he is only trying to make a living out of it. “That’s why he is trying to host every game show under the sun," he said. "We’re trying to make a living as much as he is."