Where do Australian Open doubles champions Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios go from here?

Do not pinch yourself. It was not a dream. The sun is rising on a world where Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis are grand slam winners.

The final triumph of a campaign that has taken the Australian Open by storm wasn't quite like what came before it. There wasn't as much of the bluster and bellowing in their 7-5, 6-4 win over Max Purcell and Matthew Ebden, but it's easy to see why. 

For starters, this was in Rod Laver Arena and it's harder to turn the big house into a zoo. It was later at night and the crowd was coming off the enormous emotional high ofAsh Barty's win in the women's singles final.

Plus, it's harder to weaponise the atmosphere when there's no villain for the heroes to vanquish. Max Purcell and Matthew Ebden might lack the showmanship of Kyrgios and Kokkinakis but they're Australians playing at home so even the lunatics waving around empty boxes of Special K cereal couldn't turn on them totally.

So much of Kyrgios's and Kokkinakis's play over the last two weeks has been about more than the tennis they're playing. It's ignited debate on the future of tennis, what that future should look like and whether the atmosphere the duo generate is something the game should aspire to or retreat from. Is it a game for polite applause or for the howling masses? Can it be for both? Should it be for both?

These are big questions that weren't going to be solved by the result of a doubles final, even in a grand slam and newly minted popularity wasn't going to carry the Special K's through either, just their skill and chemistry as a duo, and that proved to be enough.

«When I say I wouldn't want to do it with anybody else, I mean it. It was just special. The whole week, winning each round, I didn't take it for granted. I was