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Alexander Zverev has been accused of 'not being willing' to win the match immediately after his stinging Australian Open semi-final loss to Carlos Alcaraz. The German, who pushed Alcaraz close in a five-set thriller, was heavily criticised after the match over his mindset as Jamie Murray and his fellow TNT Sport pundits stuck the boot in.

Alcaraz had won the first two sets in style before he suddenly pulled out in the third. After taking a medical timeout, the Spaniard squandered his lead before reaching his first Australian Open final with a 7-5 final set win.

Despite the heroics from Alcaraz, Murray has slammed Zverev's handling of the encounter. "I don't think he dealt with the situation particularly well and how he went about exploiting Alcaraz's physical deficiencies in that moment," he said.

"In my eyes if it was Sasha that was cramping we'd have seen a very different game style from Alcaraz. I just think he would have like made him pay, he would have made him suffer.

"I don't think he dealt with the situation particularly well and how he went about exploiting Alcaraz's physical deficiencies in that moment. It was very defensive-minded, he didn't put his foot on the gas and really take it to him and kind of say 'hey, this is my chance and I have been given a gift from God almost and I am going to make the most of it'

"And actually he didn't really play his way back into the match I don't think, it was just the fact that Alcaraz was really struggling that the scores turned. But, that's only for him to kind of understand why he maybe went about his tennis that way in that moment."

CoCo Vandeweghe seconded Murray's words, pointing out where she believed Zverev went wrong against Alcaraz. "I think the only thing that was really telling of where Sascha Zverev is in comparison to everyone else is that winner to unforced error count compared to Carlos Alcaraz," she said.

"Alcaraz once I saw it, I think it was ten-plus of winners and that means that Sascha went and reacted instead of being proactive and I think that is always going to be a knock on Sascha when it comes to these big clutch moments, can he step up to the plate and unfortunately he showed once again he wasn't willing to take the match, he wanted Carlos to lose it to him."

Former British tennis star Tin Henman added: "I think when we were watching and when Alcaraz is struggling so much, we are thinking 'well how should Zverev be playing' and you are thinking 'well, he's got to make him move'.

"He kept serving into his forehand and Alcaraz is standing there having big cuts and he was never sort of going back, behind. He did play a couple of drop shots.

"Alcaraz does not want to run, any time he can get a swing on it he's just going to rip the ball but once he got that third set, then it gave Zverev a bit of breathing room and then it was a bit more of a chess game as to how quickly Alcaraz could recover."