Paul laments missed Melbourne chances

Tommy Paul blamed an inability to shut down sets when given the chance for his Australian Open quarterfinal exit on Tuesday, but said there were good takeaways from the tournament.

The American 12th seed held his own against world No 2 Alexander Zverev in the opening two sets.

But he lost focus when they went to tiebreakers, eventually crashing 7-6 (7/1), 7-6 (7/0), 2-6, 6-1.

"I think losing sucks always, but there's good takeaways," said Paul, who fell short of matching his 2023 exploits when he reached the last four in Melbourne.

"I served for the first two sets and won the third set, not pretty, but I won the third set.

"I just have to close those sets out. That's what the top players do so well.

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"When they're front-running, they do a great job in closing big sets or any sets, and that's what I didn't do well today," he added.

"Then when we got to the breakers, he obviously dominated the breakers. I made way too many unforced errors, and he locked it down."

Paul hit far more winners than the German, but totted up 56 unforced errors to Zverev's 36.

"Unfortunately, my unforced error count was just too high today," he said. "You can't have that when you're playing guys who are No 2 in the world at Slams."

Despite missing out on another semifinal Paul is projected to move into the world's top 10 on the back of his Melbourne run.