Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis are taking the Australian Open by storm

By Jack Bantock, CNN

Updated 1948 GMT (0348 HKT) January 25, 2022

Nick Kyrgios (left) and Thanasi Kokkinakis of Australia during their men's doubles quarterfinal match against Tim Puetz of Germany and Michael Venus of New Zealand on day 9 of the Australian Open, at Melbourne Park, in Melbourne, Tuesday, January 25, 2022.

(CNN)Had you taken a stroll past the Kia Arena in Melbourne this week, you could have been forgiven for assuming that a rock and roll festival was taking place.

If somebody then corrected you and said that the din was actually coming from a singles tennis match at the Australian Open you might have thought perhaps Ashleigh Barty or Rafa Nadal were playing.In fact, the racket was coming from an Australian Open men's doubles quarterfinal. The headline act? 'Special K,' otherwise known as Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis. The Australian wildcard duo have whipped fans into a frenzy throughout their unlikely journey into the semifinals of their home grand slam, peaking with a raucous 7-5 3-6 6-3 quarterfinal victory over Tim Puetz and Michael Venus at a packed Kia Arena on Tuesday.Hype men to the crowd, chest bumps, Cristiano Ronaldo tribute acts — to highlight the tennis alone would not do justice to the spectacle the Australian pair have provided.Read MoreKyrgios and Kokkinakis have brought a new level of showmanship to the Australian Open doubles competition.Arguably doubles has an awkward place in the tennis world — with singles events consistently taking precedence in both prize money and coverage — which makes the attention and adulation that the duo are garnering all the more impressive.Yet for Kyrgios and Kokkinakis, their relationship with the crowd is a symbiotic one, and forms the crux of their