Australian Open results: Alexander Zverev beats Tommy Paul to reach semi-finals
2025-01-21
Category: sports

Australian Open 2025Dates: 12-26 January Venue: Melbourne ParkCoverage: Live radio commentary on Tennis Breakfast from 07:00 GMT on BBC 5 Sports Extra, plus live text commentaries on the BBC Sport website and app
Alexander Zverev continued his bid for an elusive first Grand Slam title with victory over Tommy Paul to reach the Australian Open semi-finals.The German second seed won 7-6 (7-1) 7-6 (7-0) 2-6 6-1 against the American 12th seed on Rod Laver Arena.The victory was 27-year-old Zverev's seventh in a row and continues his unbeaten start to his season."I should have been down two sets, he played better than me and I was not playing great," Zverev said."The fourth set was definitely the best I played and I'm happy to be back in the semi-finals."Zverev previously reached the semi-finals at Melbourne Park in 2020 and 2024.He will play either 10-time champion Novak Djokovic or Carlos Alcaraz - who beat Zverev in the French Open final last year - in this year's last four.The match will be Zverev's ninth Grand Slam semi-final - the most among active players who have not won a major.
Paul, a semi-finalist  Melbourne in 2023, had chances to serve out the first and second set, but was denied by Zverev on both occasions.Zverev won the first set on a tie-break before losing his cool at 4-2 in the second. With Zverev set to make a return, the umpire called "let" as a feather fell near the German."It's a feather! There are millions of them on the court," an irritated Zverev said as he held up the feather to the umpire.Zverev recovered to break Paul back and win another tie-break, before dropping the third set.Zverev would regain the momentum, however, in the latter stages of the match before sealing his place in the last four with an ace.