Great Britain were left with a mountain to climb after Jack Draper lost the opening singles rubber of the Davis Cup quarter-final to Miomir Kecmanovic.
With Cameron Norrie facing the unenviable task of playing Novak Djokovic in the second match in Malaga, Draper’s tie was essentially a must-win contest.
But the British No3 was beaten 7-6, 7-6 in front a partisan crowd of thousands of British supporters.
Cheered from the stands by the likes of Dan Evans, who was forced out of contention because of surgery, Draper struggled to stay with Kecmanovic for much of the opening set and did well to take it to a tiebreak.
He raised his level in the second set but looked physically laboured at points in the latter stages and was undone on some late key points in a tighter second set tiebreak.
This was only Draper’s second ever Davis Cup match in what has been an injury-ravaged season, and the lack of experience showed at points.
He got off to a near perfect start with three aces in his opening service game but perpetually felt like he was on the verge of being broken as the set dragged on.
Kecmanovic earned the first break points – two of them – in game eight but he saved them both.
There were two more break points against him in his very next service game when a backhand down the line by his opponent clipped the net and made its way past Draper’s clutches.
A lovely drop shot cancelled that break point out and Draper saved another, the 21-year-old proving incredibly cool on the pressure points.
Having done so well to take the opening set to a tiebreak, he squandered it with two double faults from which he never recovered.
The second set was even more closely matched but, seeing his opportunities to break running out, Draper whipped the crowd into a frenzy in game nine, somehow willing them to give him an additional lift.
It worked to an extent but his level of inconsistency came to the fore again in the second tiebreak. Having earned a mini break for a 2-0 lead, he then lost the next five points in a row.
He denied one match point but couldn’t the second as Kecmanovic took a deserving win to give Serbia lead which looks unlikely to be erased.
