Thanasi Kokkinakis declares the hard-working leader of Australia's tennis pack Alex de Minaur deserves every moment of his success and feels he could be capable of of something special at the French Open.
De Minaur's Davis Cup colleague and friend Kokkinakis just missed out on a fourth-round place himself after a fine tournament, but he's hopeful his "ultimate teammate" can pull off a shock in the last-16 by defeating fifth seed Daniil Medvedev.
"Alex deserves everything that comes to him," said Kokkinakis.
"Great guy, Davis Cup teammate, always leads leads by example, most of the time wins.
"He just has the best attitude you've ever seen from a player and really pushes everyone. He's an ultimate teammate and while he's maybe not the most natural clay courter, when you're good, you're good.
"He's added a bit more firepower to his game, he's hitting his drop shot a lot better and that's a recipe for success on clay. So I think he would be using that a bit against Medvedev. Yeah, I think I give him a good shot."
Asked if he felt he could get past the Russian, who leads their head-to-head 6-2, Kokkinakis added: "Why not? He's just proven he's had tight matches with Medvedev before and beaten him, and it's not Medvedev's strongest surface either.
"Again, Medvedev's a great player, so it's going to be tough, probably has four or five sets written on it, but Alex is just a tough one, you have to play well to have a chance to beat him. It should be a really interesting match, and hopefully he gets it done."
Kokkinakis is not the only one impressed by de Minaur's continuing improvement, with Jan-Lennard Struff, the German big hitter whose weapons the Australian defused in the last round, also believing he has a shot at beating the former US Open champ Medvedev.
"We all know Demon, he's fighting back, no matter what," said Struff after de Minaur came from a set down to beat him.
"He's a great guy. Now Daniel's waiting, it's a tough match for him, but I wish him all the best and if he plays like the way he did against me in the third and fourth sets, he's definitely got a shot for sure, but obviously it's tough one.''
