Monday 21 January 2019 11:23, UK
Alexander Zverev suffered his latest Grand Slam disappointment with a fourth-round loss to Milos Raonic at the Australian Open.
The 21-year-old German beat Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic back to back to win his biggest title at the ATP Finals in November.
But he was unable to improve his record of having reached only one major quarter-final as he went into meltdown and crashed out suffering a heavy 6-1 6-1 7-6 (7-5) defeat to resurgent Canadian Raonic.
"I just tried to stay composed," said Raonic. "It worked extremely well for me today. "I played incredibly good, did a lot of things extremely well."
After breaking serve in the opening game of the match, Zverev incredibly lost 12 of the next 13 games and showed his frustration by destroying his racket after going 4-1 down in the second set, smashing it on the court nine times.
He produced a better effort in the third set and saved two match points at 4-5 but fourth-seeded Raonic, who began his tournament by beating Nick Kyrgios and Stan Wawrinka, was ultimately too strong.
Raonic, who lost to Andy Murray in the last four in Melbourne in 2016, moves on to face Lucas Pouille in the quarter-finals after the Frenchman defeated Borna Coric 6-7 (4-7) 6-4 7-5 7-6 (7-2).
"It feels great to come through against Borna who is one of the best players in the world, " said Pouille whose best previous Grand Slam performance was reaching the quarter-finals at both Wimbledon and the US Open in 2016.
"It all hinged on a few points here and there. Even though I never won a match here before this year I always enjoyed playing here. Atmosphere is great, amazing, electric. That's why they call it the Happy Slam."
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