Australia’s return to the Davis Cup World Group threatens to be a brief one after Lleyton Hewitt and Nick Kyrgios suffered straight-sets defeats on day one against France.
Exciting teenager Kyrgios started strongly but was outclassed by world no.9 Richard Gasquet 7-6 (7-3) 6-2 6-2 before veteran Lleyton Hewitt fell to tenth-ranked Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-3 6-2 7-6 (7-2).
It left Australia trailing 2-0 in the best-of-five indoor claycourt tie in La Roche sur Yon and needing victory in Saturday’s doubles to keep the encounter alive.
Hewitt will back up to join Chris Guccione against Gael Monfils and Julien Benneteau on Saturday, and one of few positives to come out of Friday’s session was that the veteran wasn’t kept on court too long.
Backed by an enthusiastic crowd in the western French town, Tsonga was ultra-impressive in securing a win in less than two hours to preserve his record of never having dropped a set to Hewitt.
He shut the Australian out of the match early with a superb serving display to race to a two-set lead.
In typical fashion, Hewitt tried his hardest to fight back in the third set but Tsonga took the tiebreak comprehensively.
An Australian side missing Bernard Tomic was always expected to struggle against a talent-packed France playing at home and on their favoured surface.
However Kyrgios raised some of hope of an early upset with a bright beginning against Gasquet.
The 162nd-ranked teenager went toe-to-toe with France’s No.1 in the first set, holding a 3-1 lead in the tiebreaker before losing six straight points to concede the set.
That appeared to take the spark out of the youngster’s game and Gasquet assumed control, closing out the match in just over two hours.
“If I win that first set, a lot of things can happen,” Kyrgios said.
“But I can sit here and say a lot of things that could have happened.
“After I lost that first set … I thought I wasn’t even playing that bad but he was just playing some really good tennis.”
Australia have returned to the competition’s top 16 for the first time since 2007 but a loss would send them back into the World Group playoffs for an eighth straight year.
