Nick Kyrgios was a motivational speaker, a part-time masseur and a dancer on the way to an entertaining doubles loss in Brisbane, with the defeat unlikely to harm his Australian Open wildcard hopes.
Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis looked set for an embarrassing Brisbane International loss after copping a first-set 'bagel' in their round-of-16 doubles match against No.6 seeds Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul.
The Special Ks fought back in style to take the second set 6-1 to rouse the Pat Rafter Arena crowd, but they couldn't recover from a disastrous 0-5 start to the first-to-10 match tiebreak.
The 6-0 1-6 10-6 match tiebreak defeat ended the Brisbane International campaign of Kyrgios and Kokkinakis, but fans still got their money's worth.
It's left Australian Open officials with a conundrum - do they hand Kyrgios one of the three remaining singles wildcards for the first major of the year?
The way Kyrgios helped lift Kokkinakis when things looked at their glummest bodes well for the former Wimbledon finalist.
Kyrgios was broken in his first service game with the winning point coming when Kokkinakis fell over and the ball was hit at him.
The French duo continued to assert their dominance, with a series of unforced errors from Kyrgios and Kokkinakis proving costly.
At 0-5 down at the changeover, Kyrgios did his best to lift the spirits of his good mate.
"When we overthink things, it's not us," Kyrgios told Kokkinakis.
"We play on instinct, then we feel it. Just play on instinct."
Although it didn't help them work back into the first set, Kokkinakis held to love to open the second set to finally get them on the board.
With the Australians up 2-1 at the next changeover, Kyrgios continued to encourage Kokkinakis to play with freedom.
The crowd erupted in the fourth game when Kokkinakis ended a huge rally with a thundering backhand winner.
Another backhand winner from Kokkinakis gave his team hope of snaring the break, and a double fault from Reboul handed it to the Aussies.
At one point of the set, Kyrgios noticed his teammate was battling a sore neck, and gave him a quick massage.
Kokkinakis produced a powerful ace to give Australia a 4-1 lead and Kyrgios did a mini dance after producing a winner to snare another break and extend the lead to 5-1.
The duo wrapped up the set, but were facing defeat again after going 0-5 down in the match tiebreak.
They fought back to make it 8-6, but the French duo held firm under pressure to win the next two points and secure victory.
Kyrgios and Kokkinakis were the toast of Melbourne when they won the Australian Open doubles in 2022.
Although injuries have cruelled the duo since then they started the Brisbane International in impressive style with a shock three-sets win over grand slam champions Matt Ebden and Rajeev Ram.
"A little word for Kokkinaksi and Kyrgios - they've had a lot of injuries, so very happy to see them in the tournament again, and I hope we will have many other battles," Reboul said after Wednesday's match.
