Australia's hopes of ending a 50-year drought at the Billie Jean King Cup were quickly dashed against Slovakia in a "disappointing" result.
The green and gold had failed to win the title since 1974, having finished runner-up 10 times since that particular point.
Team captain Samantha Stosur had an early decision to make for the opening rubber, opting to trust Kimberly Birrell ahead of 22-year-old Olivia Gadecki to face world No.238 Viktória Hrunčáková.
A streak of impressive service holds was snapped in the 12th game of the first set at the expense of Birrell, as she was broken to hand the Slovak the advantage.
The 26-year-old Aussie survived a second-set tiebreak, but ultimately fell 7-5 6-7(4) 6-3 in a game of fine margins.
Doubles pair Ellen Perez and Daria Saville had no opportunity to take to the court after Ajla Tomljanović couldn't avoid a straight sets sweep in the tie.
"Obviously it’s disappointing," said Stosur.
"I think Kim was very, very close to getting that first match our way, which was great. I thought it was a really good, quality match.
"That was unfortunate to be down 1-0, and then I think it was pretty obvious from 4-0 Ajla was really struggling. It was a tough situation to then be trying to get ourselves back into the tie when clearly you can see that your No.1 player is pretty hampered out there. Not the way you ever want it to go."
With the tie on the line, the pressure was firmly on Tomljanović's shoulders in a must-win scenario against Rebecca Šramková.
It would never be straightforward for the world No.84, as Šramková upended former Australian Open finalist Danielle Collins in the playoffs earlier this week.
An early 4-0 deficit for Tomljanović was far from ideal, but the 31-year-old was clearly struggling with a lower leg injury which impacted her ability to keep the match competitive as she went down 6-1 6-2.
"It didn’t feel good in the moment," said Tomljanović. "I don’t really have much more info for you than that. [It] definitely felt really hard to get back on track after that, because, having a previous injury there, it never feels good to feel something go wrong.
"I always bounce back, so I will, but it’s definitely a tough day. It almost feels like I would have taken this a bit easier if it was just a regular tournament for myself, but you don’t want to let your teammates down, so it was a pretty bad ending to today."
For the first time since 2002, Slovakia will make a long-awaited return to the Billie Jean Cup semi-finals after upsetting the USA in the playoffs.
"It’s another big country which we beat, and I’m so proud for the girls, for our team members, for [our] country, because we are a small country. For us, [it] really [means] so much, so I’m happy,” said coach Matej Liptak.
Comments