diff --git a/Lib/xml/etree/ElementTree.py b/Lib/xml/etree/ElementTree.py
index 1a25f9a6302..10ee896c289 100644
--- a/Lib/xml/etree/ElementTree.py
+++ b/Lib/xml/etree/ElementTree.py
@@ -1674,12 +1674,11 @@ def close(self):
         except self._error as v:
             self._raiseerror(v)
         try:
-            try:
-                close_handler = self.target.close
-            except AttributeError:
-                pass
-            else:
-                return close_handler()
+            close_handler = self.target.close
+        except AttributeError:
+            pass
+        else:
+            return close_handler()
         finally:
             # get rid of circular references
             del self.parser, self._parser