Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios are the headline joint act that typically only sees the light of day once a year.
On Wednesday afternoon, the good mates reprised their occasional partnership – top billing on a heaving Court 3 at Melbourne Park – for a first-round 6-4 6-2 doubles victory over fellow Aussie wildcards Alex Bolt and James McCabe.
MORE: Men's doubles results AO 2022
The queues outside to join the party could have filled an adjacent arena alone.
For the second year running, the Special Ks – as they were collectively named in their days as promising teenage peers – reached the second round.
Theirs was a partnership built more on banter and crowd interactions than any hushed discussions of anything overtly tactical.
Kokkinakis last year admitted their on-court discussions were "maybe one per cent" tactical, "definitely more rubbish".
Wednesday's showdown hadn't even started when a spectator yelled "give us your racquet, Nick", to which Kyrgios jogged over and handed it to the punter.
Moments later, before the coin toss, chair umpire Alison Hughes was pressed on the four compatriots' bicep benchmarks at the gym.
"Do you have any questions gentlemen?" Hughes asked.
"Who do you reckon does the biggest curls out of us here?" Kyrgios replied.
"Oh I'm not going into that," Hughes laughed.
Kokkinakis and Kyrgios first teamed up at an Australian Open nine years ago in both the boys' doubles and main draw doubles, while Kyrgios beat his younger mate for the boys' singles title.
MORE: Men's doubles draw AO 2022
Later that year, the pair teamed up to win the boys' doubles at Wimbledon and since rejoined forces for the 2015 and 2021 Australian Opens, the latter at which they won their first Grand Slam main draw match together.
"Playing with him is always an experience," Kokkinakis said ahead of their first-round match. "I don't think we're the most traditional doubles pairing you'll see.
"We have fun out there. We like to get the crowd going. Singles is so intense and so serious. The media hypes it.
"It's massive for us as well, we want to do well. Being on court with each other, we can kind of relax a little bit, kind of feed off each other. It gives us a good sort of bond."
Following his win over Liam Broady on Tuesday night, Kyrgios paid tribute in his on-court interview to Kokkinakis' recent resurgence, which culminated in a maiden singles title in Adelaide.
"You look at Thanasi's case, he's had so many injuries, you can see he had a bittersweet end, but the last couple of weeks have been amazing and that's what he's capable of," Kyrgios said. "So hopefully he gets healthy and get his ranking back to where he wants it to be. I love him."
The duo's win set a second-round clash against top-seeded Croatians Mate Pavic and Nikola Mektic.
It was a chance to extend their stay and crucially to bring back that banter to another Melbourne Park showcourt.