{"id":27372,"date":"2025-09-19T20:41:49","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T10:41:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/?p=27372"},"modified":"2025-09-19T20:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T10:42:07","slug":"djokovic-inspires-rising-aussie-teen-tahlia-kokkinis-as-she-steps-into-pro-tennis-ranks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/news\/2025\/09\/19\/djokovic-inspires-rising-aussie-teen-tahlia-kokkinis-as-she-steps-into-pro-tennis-ranks","title":{"rendered":"Djokovic Inspires Rising Aussie Teen Tahlia Kokkinis as She Steps Into Pro Tennis Ranks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
An Australian schoolgirl sees Novak Djokovic in the gym and thinks to herself, \u2018should I? Should I really interrupt arguably the GOAT in the middle of his exercise to introduce myself?\u2019

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Bugger it. Why not?

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\u201cHi Novak, I\u2019m Tahlia.\u201d

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Djokovic stopped and swivelled around, getting to know Tahlia Kokkinis before the rest of the world will learn about her tennis trajectory.

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For the next 15 minutes, the pair chatted, at ease. Djokovic wanted to know all about her career so far. He spoke about never giving up on your dreams.

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As for the rest\u2026<\/div>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t remember all of it because I was mesmerised by meeting him,\u201d Kokkinis laughs. \u201cIt was just an amazing experience to meet Novak. He was so down to earth. After all of his accomplishments, he was so humble and he wanted to listen to everything. He was a really nice guy.\u201d

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Kokkinis took her chance meeting with Djokovic thanks to a year in which she has played either qualifying or the main draw at all four junior grand slams.

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At the Australian Open, she rode a wildcard all the way to the quarter-finals in front of huge Melbourne Park crowds, and also won main draw matches at Wimbledon and the US Open.

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Unfailingly polite, it\u2019s easier to be impressed by Kokkinis\u2019 off-court demeanour than her on-court feats, wiping out older rivals at the Wagga Wagga Tennis International #2 this week as she starts stepping out of juniors.

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Her cosmopolitan background is one she revels in. \u201cI\u2019m very proud of my heritage,\u201d she says.

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Her grandparents migrated to Australia from Greece. Tahlia was born in the regional NSW town of Lithgow in the shadows of the Blue Mountains to parents Sam and Christina.

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Kokkinis had a racquet in her hand by the age of three. When Sam and Christina wanted a new life away from Sydney and its surrounds, they moved north to set up home in Brisbane.

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Sam has a background in sports science while working as a PE teacher, and Christina has also been in education system for more than two decades, now working as a deputy principal.

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Yet tennis might not have been Tahlia\u2019s first love, or even best sport.

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\u201cGolf might have been first, and I was doing swimming as well,\u201d she says. \u201cI think I was quite good at golf.<\/div>\n
\u201cBut I sort of gravitated towards tennis because I liked it. I like quick, fast-twitched sports. Maybe golf was a bit slow and swimming was a bit repetitive for me. I liked tennis and it\u2019s something I\u2019ve always had a passion for.\u201d

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The importance of schooling is not lost on them or Kokkinis, who has spent recent years undertaking flexible online education as she travels the world as one of Australia\u2019s top juniors, reaching as high as 31 in the world.

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Last month, she turned 17. As her frizzy hair bobs up and down like a cork in the ocean as she crashes balls back across the net from the baseline, it\u2019s hard to comprehend one so young has already achieved so much, winning her first W15 event in Tunisia in June to add to major J200 titles in France and Sydney in the past year.

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\u201cI think age is just a number in tennis,\u201d Kokkinis says. \u201cNow, you see a lot of the younger generation coming through like Alcaraz and Sinner.

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\u201cWhen you\u2019re in the moment, you don\u2019t think about age. You think about, \u2018what\u2019s working well?\u2019 Anyone at any age can beat anyone.\u201d

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Kokkinis had two invaluable experiences against Great Britain\u2019s Katie Swan, a player who was previously on the cusp of the world\u2019s top 100 before a chronic back injury, during the first two professional events ever played in Wagga Wagga over the past fortnight.

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Winning matches will help her ranking, bit it might also help attract the financial support to allow one of the country\u2019s top prospects chase the dreams Djokovic urged her to do.

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\u201cRight now it\u2019s tough when you\u2019re always travelling and you have accommodation, food and it would always be great to have that support,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m going to throw everything into tennis and see how it goes.\u201d<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Australian schoolgirl sees Novak Djokovic in the gym and thinks to herself, \u2018should I? Should I really interrupt arguably the GOAT in the middle of his exercise to introduce myself?\u2019 Bugger it. Why not? \u201cHi Novak, I\u2019m Tahlia.\u201d Djokovic stopped and swivelled around, getting to know Tahlia Kokkinis before the rest of the world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6323,"featured_media":27373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6323"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}