Thanasi Kokkinakis poked fun at himself after the fan-favourite was involved in yet another dramatic Australian Open clash.

Kokkinakis is no stranger to five-set thrillers, having suffered painful losses to Stefanos Tsitsipas and Andy Murray at Melbourne Park in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

But he was determined not to make it three painful defeats on the trot at his home grand slam, overcoming Sebastian Ofner in five sets to reach the second round of this year's tournament. 

The gruelling four hour, 18 minute five-setter, coming back from a two-sets-to-one deficit, brought out the best out of the Australian.

'Mate, I wish I could do it easier but I can't,' he admitted

'I've got the mental focus of a three-year-old.

'However I can get it done, you guys (the crowd) are amazing. Without you, no chance I'm winning.'

Kokkinakis let last year's second-round clash with Murray slip over the course of five hours and 45 minutes - the second-longest match in Open history.

When asked what was going on inside his head during the Ofner match, he said: 'You don't wanna know.

'Battling some serious demons, that's for sure.

'I had a tough end to last year, tough start to this year and I know it's the first round but this one meant a lot.'

The 27-year-old confessed that he found it very hard to stay motivated during the gruelling ATP tour, which sees stars travel an incredible amount as they tackle a seemingly never-ending list of tournaments.

'It's just tough. I find it, to be honest, very difficult to kind of bring my intensity and level week in, week out as the year gets longer and longer,' he said.

'There's barely any off season in this sport. 

'I know you might look in the headlines, I'm a bit of a brat, complaining about something we get paid well to do, but it is [tough].

'I'm just very jealous of the sports that can play eight months and then have some time off and regroup.

'It feels like with tennis you're always kind of looking over your shoulder as to what's next. There's no time to really decompress.

'I know you can pick and choose your tournaments, but if you do that too much and take too much time off, guys are going to lap you.' 

Kokkinakis battled through a see-sawing match tiebreak to reach the second round for a fifth time.

The South Australian landed two match points and while Ofner managed to save the first on serve he hit the second on Kokkinakis's serve into the net.

Kokkinakis will attempt to reach the third round for the first time when he faces No.13 seed Dimitrov.

'Grigor's a hell of a player, been doing this for a while now and he is in some great form right now,' Kokkinakis said.

'But yeah, I back myself ... I've beaten high-ranked players before, I've lost to lower-ranked players. It's a number.

'It's about coming out on the day and playing my best tennis - hopefully I can do that.'