Kyrgios and Kokkinakis revel in another wild showing of Special K double act

Nick Kyrgios clapped a hand over his mouth. Kyrgios is not easily shocked, but shocked he was. The poor kid he had accidentally cleaned up with a smash travelling around 200kmh was pretty stunned too. The young boy, sat a few rows from the front, winced. The umpire took the unusual step of climbing down from her chair and asking his mother if he was OK.

No one really knew what to do, which was astonishing in itself given the raucous scenes at this doubles match and every other Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis have played at this Australian Open. Eventually Kyrgios shook himself conscious and jogged over to his bag, pulled out a fresh racket and ran it over to the boy. He smiled. Everyone else in Kia Arena wanted to get hit with a ball and go home with a souvenir.

This was always going to be a headline from this latest chapter of the Special Ks chronicles – well, until Kokkinakis told the crowd, on live TV, to “sink piss and come here” – but it fails to properly account for the rest of the show. And it was wild. Ticket-holders had snaked around the arena hoping to snag a seat to watch the Special Ks win a quarter-final most would not have even predicted them to be playing.

The all-Australian wildcard pairing had already dumped top seeds Mate Pavić and Nikola Mektić out in straight sets. Now they set about unpicking this duo of New Zealander Michael Venus and German Tim Pütz in a to-and-fro contest that finished 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.

It happened in front of what was, in every sense, an Australian crowd. Singleted, boisterous, irreverent and, frankly, histrionic. The cheers, chants and whistles could be heard from well outside the stadium.

If Craig Tiley had been worried about ‘Where is Peng Shuai?’ T-shirt wearers adopting a mob