The Queenstown doubles specialist and his partner Jan-Lennard Struff were beaten in the quarterfinals yesterday, losing to Frederik Nielsen and Joe Salisbury 7-6, 4-6, 7-6, 7-6.
It was a close loss, however. All three sets they lost went to tie-breakers.
Indeed, it was so close that there was only one break point in the match and that went the way of McLachlan and Struff.
McLachlan and Struff also hit more winners (33-22), had fewer unforced errors (7-9) and served more aces (22-11).
However, it was not enough to get the job done.
The first set tie-breaker was the one which hurt the most.
McLachlan and Struff had the score at 6-6, before Nielsen and Salisbury won a point against the serve.
They followed that up with a point off their own serve to take an 8-6 win.
McLachlan and Struff hit back to even the score at 1-1, but another tie-break - this time 7-2 - left the pair needing to win the two remaining sets.
They were unable to do so, going down 7-4 in the fourth set tie-breaker.
The result leaves McLachlan and Struff with a handy payday of $NZ109,000.
It was the pair's second impressive Grand Slam result of the year, after they made the semifinals of the Australian Open in January.
In the mixed doubles round of 16, McLachlan and partner Eri Hozumi were beaten 6-4, 6-1 by Dutch pair Jean-Julien Rojer and Demi Schuurs.
