Armed with a dead man's Achilles in his shoulder, Thanasi Kokkinakis is back hitting groundstrokes pain-free after undergoing revolutionary surgery in a last-ditch effort to save his tennis career.
After years of mental and physical "torture," Kokkinakis underwent pectoral reattachment surgery in February.
Entrusting the same respected doctor who completed career-reviving shoulder surgery on Pat Rafter and Shane Warne, Kokkinakis admitted to rolling the dice.
"It's a risk I took knowing that that might not be a chance," the one-time Roger Federer slayer told AAP on Friday.
"No tennis player's had the surgery that I've had before, so it's a risky one and the tough part is it's hard to bounce ideas off anyone.
"But I didn't want to keep doing what I was doing and playing through the pain that I was the last few years, so I wanted to take a risk and see how I go."
Kokkinakis has joined the Australian Davis Cup team in Sydney to continue his recovery and return as a hitting partner for Alex de Minaur, Jordan Thompson and company ahead of their second-round qualifying tie against Belgium this weekend.
"I'm going alright," the 29-year-old said.
"I started on court probably a couple of weeks ago. So started back training and my groundstrokes are pretty close to 100 per cent.
"It's just the serving that's the tough part, so that's the bit that I'm trying to get back and we'll see.
"My goal is to come back next year.
"I've actually looked forward to the process of trying to start up again and play with no pain, which is something I've barely been able to do throughout my career.
"So mentally I'm OK. If I miss this summer, then I might struggle a bit mentally.
"But if I can reach my end goal, then I'll be in a good spot."
The South Australian's "end goal" is to return free of discomfort in 2026.
"I've been playing with a bad pec rupture for the best part of four or five years," Kokkinakis said.
"And long story short, if I was to try and play a long match or a five-setter or even back-to-back matches, I'd pull up and my arm would swell up and I wouldn't be able to play, or I'd play through and have to retire.
"So I didn't want to go through that just making up the numbers and having a good win and then having to pull out.
"I wanted to try something to see if it worked and I ended up having a lot of scar tissue cut out and half my pec essentially cut off the right one.
"And then I have an Achilles allograft, so a dead person's Achilles attaching from my pec that was torn to my shoulder to try and assist with strength."
The 2022 Australian Open champion partnering Nick Kyrgios, Kokkinakis ruled out reverting to doubles only if he is unable to make a proper singles comeback.
"It feels like two different sports," he said.
"It's not probably the way I want going forward. I'd rather probably retire than if I'm just going fulltime doubles.
"So my goal is to try and get back on the singles court and, if I can play doubles as well, that'd be great.
"But I'd struggle if it was just doubles."
