Australia's vanquished Davis Cup team sat in a gloomy line at their post-final press conference in Malaga, listening blank-eyed to the words of praise from their captain and looking as if they wished they could be anywhere else.
They'd been here before. Twelve months ago, to be precise, after losing to Canada in the 2022 final, and here were Lleyton Hewitt and his men again, undergoing another painful public inquest into their fall at the last hurdle, this time against Italy.
Yet when the players themselves were asked about whether they really believed they could come back to Spain and make it third time lucky next year, they all perked up, with playing captain Alex de Minaur leading a defiant chorus.
