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Nick Campton 

Where do Australian Open doubles champions Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios go from here?

Kokkinakis and Kyrgios have taken the summer by storm.  (Getty Images: Darrian Traynor)

Do not pinch yourself. It was not a dream. The sun is rising on a world where Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis are grand slam winners.

The final triumph of a campaign that has taken the Australian Open by storm wasn't quite like what came before it. There wasn't as much of the bluster and bellowing in their 7-5, 6-4 win over Max Purcell and Matthew Ebden, but it's easy to see why. 

For starters, this was in Rod Laver Arena and it's harder to turn the big house into a zoo. It was later at night and the crowd was coming off the enormous emotional high of Ash Barty's win in the women's singles final.

Plus, it's harder to weaponise the atmosphere when there's no villain for the heroes to vanquish. Max Purcell and Matthew Ebden might lack the showmanship of Kyrgios and Kokkinakis but they're Australians playing at home so even the lunatics waving around empty boxes of Special K cereal couldn't turn on them totally.

Kyrgios and Kokkinakis have won their first grand slam.  (Getty: Darrian Traynor)

So much of Kyrgios's and Kokkinakis's play over the last two weeks has been about more than the tennis they're playing. It's ignited debate on the future of tennis, what that future should look like and whether the atmosphere the duo generate is something the game should aspire to or retreat from. Is it a game for polite applause or for the howling masses? Can it be for both? Should it be for both?

These are big questions that weren't going to be solved by the result of a doubles final, even in a grand slam and newly minted popularity wasn't going to carry the Special K's through either, just their skill and chemistry as a duo, and that proved to be enough.

"When I say I wouldn't want to do it with anybody else, I mean it. It was just special. The whole week, winning each round, I didn't take it for granted. I was soaking it in," Kyrgios said afterwards.

"Not one time did it cross my mind that we were going to win the title.

"Maybe when we got to about the quarters I started maybe thinking, but honestly, like the dedication I showed all week for my team, and like, I'm just super proud of myself the way -- you know, I don't really care too much after I lost to (Daniil) Medvedev, but doing it with Kokk is insane. This ranks one with me.

"I owe it to Kokk, the way he came out this summer and won that tournament, and I'm not gonna ruin like – we don't know how many Oz Opens we're going to play in the future due to injury or just deciding not to play.

"There was too much on it to do everything I could to play and play well, and look what happened.

"This is a memory that we are never going to forget. We are going to grow old, and we're always going to (say) 'remember that time we rolled off the couch and just won Oz Open?'"

There's a temptation to say Kyrgios and Kokkinakis have grown up before our eyes in this tournament, and will now parlay this triumph into sustained singles success For Kokkinakis, at least, it just might be true. 

After his career was on the brink a few years ago it's been a career-defining summer for Kokkinakis. He can be obscured by Kyrgios's stardom sometimes, but doubles isn't ever a one-man show.

When Kyrgios was getting in his own way at the latter stages of the semi-final it was Kokkinakis who took the lead and control of the match. In the final, Kokkinakis made some huge shots down the stretch that helped set up the chance for Kyrgios to ice the game with his serve in the final game. 

Kokkinakis seems so grateful to still have the chance at a career after his injury troubles, and with his new-found mindset he is still a player of enormous potential who has the chance to create his own future. 

"I knew what I was capable of, but you always have doubts and you always think to yourself, 'what if it doesn't happen, what if my career doesn't plan out the way I want it to, or what if I never win a title or get a chance like that?'" Kokkinakis said.

"To have the summer I've had, I was stoked with making a semi-final in Adelaide, just coming from not much in a tour event and then to win, I was, like, can't get any better than this.

"Then to win a Grand Slam after that, this month has been unbelievable for me.

"I said to my team after, 'whatever happens, if I snap my knee tomorrow' -- this was after Adelaide -- 'I'm happy'.

Kokkinakis could look back at this summer as the moment his career turned around.  (Getty Images: Mackenzie Sweetnam)

"I've won a title, coming from kind of where I felt was the lowest low to come and win a title in my hometown was incredible.

"It's just a big weight off my shoulders. It's a testament to my team and everyone that stuck by me through a lot of hard times.

"Hopefully this is a start, but as I said, if this is as good as it gets for me, I'm happy."

For Kyrgios, as ever, the question is more complex.

This is the peak of his career, and maybe it's the start of a mountain range and maybe one day the country comes together for Kyrgios the way they did for Ash Barty and he wins a slam on his own and justifies all the times people said he could do it if he only knuckled down. It's a nice dream for his true believers. 

But it's just as likely none of that happens. Maybe this is enough for Kyrgios, who has spoken at length and with great honesty on his struggles to play purely for himself.

For someone who commands the spotlight with such ease, Kyrgios doesn't have a hunger for personal glory and he does not crave individual success like some of his peers. This could be as good as it gets and if you only win one slam you may as well win it at home with your best mate.

Maybe this is an end disguised as a new beginning. Kyrgios has spoken before about considering retirement but it's clear he is finding more joy in tennis these days and there will be a palpable desire among fans for Kyrgios to really commit to things this time, to rip in for a few months and give the French Open a real go, even though he hates clay,  before heading to Wimbledon and then to Flushing Meadows before coming back to Melbourne to do it all again in singles.

The path seems so clear, and when it comes to Kyrgios it's so easy to get carried away.

Kyrgios is the master of his own destiny.  (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

But those things will only happen if Kyrgios wants it, because the only person who decides what Kyrgios is going to do is himself. 

From his comments on Saturday night, Kyrgios wants to sleep until next January, until it's time to come out of hibernation and hit big and serve bigger and find his kingdom for another couple of weeks.

You get the sense he'd do that every year for the rest of his life if he could, and whatever else happens is just a bonus. 

He's got his major now. They can't take it away from him and his mate. For the rest of his life, nobody can say what a damn shame it was that Nick Kyrgios never won a grand slam.

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