Alexander Zverev survives Tommy Paul in the Aussie quarter

Still in pursuit of his first Grand Slam title, Germany’s Alexander Zverev narrowly missed out on a trip to the semi-finals at the Australian Open.

But even with some shaky serving in his first two games, second-seeded Zverev survived 12th-seeded American Tommy Paul 7-6 (1), 7-6 (0), 2-6, 6-1 in the quarter-finals in Melbourne on Tuesday.

Zverev will next play the winner of Tuesday’s second quarter-final match between rivals Novak Djokovic of Serbia, the No. 7, and Carlos Alcaraz from Spain, no. 3.

Zverev, who will be playing in his third Aussie Open semi, dropped serve at 5-5 in the first set and sat a game from trailing 1-0. But he fought back to survive a set point and broke the 27-year-old Paul before rolling in the tiebreaker.

Zverev, 27, slipped even earlier in the second set, dropping his first service game and eventually trailing 3-0. He battled back though, breaking Paul to pull within 5-4 before holding serve from there – despite facing a second set point – and beating his opponent in the tiebreaker.

“To be honest, I should have been down two sets to love,” Zverev said in his on-court interview after the match. “He was playing better than me. I wasn’t playing well and I thought he was.

“I somehow won the first set, won the second set and all of a sudden I’m up two sets to love and I only need one more set.”

Paul dominated the third set to get some hope of a comeback, but it quickly faded away as Zverev cruised in the fourth set to seal the match.

“The fourth set was definitely the best I’ve played and of course I’m extremely happy to be back in the semifinals now,” Zverev said.

–Field-level media