Kokkinakis’ chilling tale: "Playing with a dead person’s sinew"

Thanasi Kokkinakis’s spectacular victory in the first round of the French Open against host Térence Atmane has rekindled the spotlight on the Australian tennis player, who has had to deal with so many injuries and numerous surgeries throughout his career.

“I have a new arm and a new shoulder that I’m trying to work with,” Kokkinakis said at a press conference, “I wake up every day trying to figure out what is normal to feel and what is not. They cut half my pectoral muscle and so many doctors didn’t even want to operate. Now I have an Achilles tendon from a deceased person in my arm, I need it to keep the pectoral muscle reattached to my shoulder.”

The Australian went on to elaborate, “It’s something abnormal and the most complicated part of this is that before I had surgery I had not found anyone to compare myself with, someone who had had this kind of surgery and could tell me what to expect, what was normal to feel and what was not.”

“In January last year I also saw Rafael Nadal’s doctor before the surgery and he himself told me that he had never seen a situation like this. It was something similar to a bodybuilder injury but in a slightly different area. No tennis player had ever had something like that,” concluded Thanasi Kokkinakis.