Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios will reunite at Australian Open 2025, three years after they memorably won the men’s doubles event at AO 2022 – a first Grand Slam title for both.
The all-Aussie duo are not the only team set to generate fan interest when the men’s and women’s doubles events kick off on Tuesday 14 January.
We profile five of our favourite combinations with the action just over two weeks away.
Running it back 🔥🔥 @NickKyrgios x @TKokkinakis pic.twitter.com/0zzUzRiU7l
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) December 29, 2024
1. Thanasi Kokkinakis / Nick Kyrgios
It’s been more than two years since Kokkinakis and Kyrgios have played together; that was at the 2022 ATP Finals in Turin, when they went 1-2 in the group stage.
Their qualification for that season-ending championship was made possible by a brilliant season in tandem in 2022, during which they won 20 of their 27 matches.
KYRGIOS: "I want to call John Cain Arena the Kyrgios Court"
After their thrilling victory at that year’s Australian Open, they reached the semifinals in Miami and Tokyo either side of their title in Atlanta. They also fell just short of a quarterfinal place at the US Open.
The crowds they drew, and the atmosphere they created, was one of the talking points of AO 2022. Their win in the final immediately followed Ash Barty’s drought-breaking women’s singles victory at Rod Laver Arena, in what was an incredible night for Australian tennis.
Expect more explosive hitting, fireworks and compelling chemistry when they reunite at Melbourne Park.
2. Hsieh Su-Wei / Jelena Ostapenko
This partnership has the potential to be a cult favourite – the coming together of two players who could only be described as chalk and cheese.
Ostapenko, famous for winning the 2017 Roland Garros title, is one of the more audacious, aggressive shot-makers at the top of women’s tennis. She’s currently ranked 15th in singles, having been as high as world No.5.
Hsieh plays with a style entirely the opposite – all guile, angles and soft hands to completely confound opponents. In 2023, after almost 18 months away, she returned with a bang, winning the Roland Garros and Wimbledon doubles titles and returning to world No.1.
Hsieh is also the reigning Australian Open champion, having won the 2024 title with Elise Mertens over Ostapenko and Lyudmyla Kichenok, who later went on to win the US Open.
Both Hsieh and Ostapenko are top-10 stars in doubles.
"Su-Wei a year ago had no ranking and got back to No.1 inside 12 months, which has never happened before and will never happen again,” said Hsieh’s coach Paul McNamee on The Sit-Down podcast.
"Her finishing volleys are the best in the world.”
3. Tomas Machac / Zhang Zhizhen
Top men’s singles players don’t often play doubles at Grand Slam tournaments, and it’s even rarer for two highly-ranked singles players to feature in the same team.
Enter Tomas Machac and Zhang Zhizhen – one of just two teams in the field in which both players hold top-50 singles rankings.
The other is all-Argentine combo Francisco Cerundolo and Tomas Martin Etcheverry, whose respective singles rankings of No.30 and No.39 give them a combined entry ranking of No.69.
This is one ahead of Machac and Zhang’s combined entry ranking of 70th. But unlike those countrymen, who have struggled for wins together on the doubles court, Machac and Zhang have combined beautifully.
MORE ON MACHAC: A cult favourite
They won 16 of their 23 matches in 2024, beginning the year with a bang thanks to a semifinal run at the Australian Open. They also won the ATP title in Marseille before progressing to the Barcelona semifinals.
They later found themselves on opposite sides of the net in the mixed doubles final at the Paris 2024 Olympics, with Machac combining with Katerina Siniakova to win gold for the Czech Republic, leaving Zhang with silver alongside fellow Chinese Wang Xinyu.
4. Mirra Andreeva / Diana Shnaider
On the women’s side, there’s an even more notable duo comprising two singles stars – Olympic silver medallists Mirra Andreeva and Diana Shnaider.
Andreeva and Shnaider are two of the game’s most exciting ascendant talents. Shnaider won four WTA titles during 2024 to peak at world No.12, while Andreeva was a Roland Garros semifinalist at just 17 years of age.
Both own top-20 singles rankings, making them the only pair in either doubles field to hold this distinction.
Remarkably, their silver medal-winning campaign at Paris 2024 was their first time joining forces. They teamed up again later in the year, at the China Open, and reached the quarters.
Australian Open 2025 will be just their third tournament together.
5. Matt Ebden / Joran Vliegen
We’re intrigued to see how Ebden – the AO men’s doubles defending champion – will fare with a new partner in Vliegen.
At Australian Open 2024 Ebden won the trophy with India’s Rohan Bopanna, who in 2025 will team with Nicolas Barrientos of Colombia.
The following month Ebden rose to world No.1, before he and Bopanna won the Miami Masters and reached the Roland Garros semifinals.
The Aussie then combined with countryman John Peers to win men’s doubles gold at the Paris 2024 Olympics, and ended the year as the joint winner of the Newcombe Medal, awarded to Australia’s most outstanding elite tennis player and ambassador for the sport.
Belgium’s Vliegen, a former doubles world No.17, will be partnering a player with a formidable record at Melbourne Park.
Ebden also won the AO mixed title in 2013 and returned to the final of that event in 2021, a year before reaching the men’s doubles final with Max Purcell – where they lost to Kokkinakis and Kyrgios.