Australian young gun Thanasi Kokkinakis has overcome a heavy tumble late in the match to claim victory over fellow countryman Bernard Tomic at the French Open.

Kokkinakis needed two medical time-outs before recovering from 2-5 in the fifth set to secure a third-round clash with world number one Novak Djokovic.

A fall late in the fourth set left Kokkinakis bloodied and burised, but he clawed his way to the greatest grand slam victory of his career.

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Tomic blew three match points and a 5-2 fifth-set advantage against his Australian Davis Cup teammate, to crash out of the claycourt slam in a 3-6 3-6 6-3 6-4 8-6 defeat on Thursday.

The marathon match took 3 hours and 22 minutes, pushing Kokkinakis to a career-high ranking of number 68.

Luckily, Kokkinakis was confident his right hip injury would not impact his match against reigning Wimbledon and US Open champion Djokovic.

“My hip is pretty sore,” he told News Corp.

“It’s pretty bruised right now, but that’s all right.

“We’ll see how it pulls up.”

Kokkinakis, 19, has quickly built a reputation for bottomless stamina with marathon wins at the Australian Open and in Davis Cup.

Kokkinakis and Djokovic have never played, but they practised together in Perth three years ago.

“At Hopman Cup. I warmed him up. I hit with him a couple times,” Kokkinais told News Corp.

“Haven’t really hit with him in like three years, which is a bit strange.

“I’ve hit with most of the other guys. Yeah, I don’t know why. It just hasn’t happened I’ve hit with him. I said I’d be looking forward to hit with him, but now I guess I got a good chance.”

Fellow countryman, Tomic, remained up beat about the defeat that sent him packing, and looked towards the next grand slam, Wimbledon.

“I haven’t been that healthy for the last three weeks, but I had a chance today. It was on my racquet but unfortunately I couldn’t do it,” Tomic said.

“I had the ball in the hand, serving for it, couldn’t have asked for a better way to win but I kind of screwed up in the end …. it’s playing on my worst surface.

“But now it is going to be good for grass. This is where I can do well.”

Tomic has risen to 24th in the provisional world rankings, enough to ensure he wouldn’t run into anyone in the world’s top eight until the fourth round at Wimbledon.

But he hoped officials would elevate him and fellow-Aussie Nick Kyrgios, provisionally ranked 25th, in the seedings because of their strong records at the All England Club.

The 22-year-old’s priority is recovering from a back injury that restricted his movement at Roland Garros.

Tomic will prepare for Wimbledon at two grasscourt lead-up events in Germany – the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart straight after the French Open and the Gary Weber Open in Halle from June 15.

– with AAP