–

BRISBANE, Australia – As comebacks go, this one couldn’t have worked out any better for Novak Djokovic and Nick Kyrgios.

The two new besties took to Pat Rafter Arena to face doubles specialists Alexander Erler and Andreas Mies, in their first competitive match in quite awhile.

And with the German-Austrian duo playing worthy and smiling foils, while still producing some excellent tennis, the Kyrgios-Djokovic duo prevailed 6-4,6-7 (4) [10-8] to move onto the second round.

They’ll face the No. 1 seeds, Nikola Mektic and Michael Venus, in the second round.

Here’s what it looked like. The Monday night crowd was a record in Brisbane, beating out a tournament high set in 2014.

It’s hard to argue that tennis hasn’t missed these two – perhaps for different reasons, but it’s all the same in the end. The level of excitement was off the charts, which is what happens when you have such extreme star power on the court.

For Djokovic, it was his first match since losing the final in Shanghai to Jannik Sinner.

He played just four doubles matches in 2023 (and none in 2024), winning one. He’s also played a few in Davis Cup in the last year. But not many through his career, relatively speaking. And he has a sub-.500 record.

For Kyrgios, it was his first match since a first-round loss in Stuttgart in June, 2023 – and only his second since he gave Taylor Fritz a walkover in the quarterfinals of Tokyo in Oct. 2022.

So that’s more than two years away.

Kyrgios hadn’t played doubles since the ATP Finals in 2022; he played 11 tournaments that year, but got into the finals because of his win at the Australian Open with mate Thanasi Kokkinakis.

Not much rust showing

The two admittedly are not doubles players; Djokovic said he had never played much anyway – much less the last five years.

And Kyrgios said in a lengthy post-match interview that he was surprised how much the greatest of all time doubted himself at certain moments.

But there were major moments of flash – and some good hops from the 37-year-old Serb.

And – a knockdown by Kyrgios of Erler, on a forehand hit SO hard, at close range, it was lucky no internal organs were damaged.

Erler – a stoic Austrian – completely got into it. He worked to rev up the crowd in their favour when they made great shots.

And in response to that Kyrgios forehand, he unleashed one of his own that got the crowd going and was every bit as good (but didn’t cause any bodily damage).

It will be interesting to see how they scheduled that second round of doubles; only six days remain to play five singles matches. And you know they’ll want this one on the big stadium court again.

Now, on Tuesday, the real work begins as both Kyrgios and Djokovic play their first-round singles matches.

Pics: Djokovic is back, and Brisbane has him

About Post Author