‘Sucks Always’ as flawed Paul laments missed Melbourne chances

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Tommy Paul blamed an inability to close out sets when given the chance for his Australian Open quarter-final exit on Tuesday, but said there were good takeaways from the tournament.

The American 12th seed held his own against world number two Alexander Zverev in the first two sets.

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

“I always think losing is ugly but there are good opportunities,” said Paul, who could not match his 2023 feats when he reached the last four in Melbourne.

“I served in 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.

“When they’re front-running, they do a great job of closing big sets or other 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 collected 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 play guys who are number two in the world at the Slams.”

Despite missing out on another semi-final, Paul is expected to move into the world’s top 10 on the back of his Melbourne run.