Thanasi Kokkinakis has been soundly beaten on his Laver Cup debut in Berlin as the Australian giant killer sought to repeat his shock US Open triumph over Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Kokkinakis, seeking to kick off his 'Team World' career in the tennis invitation event in style, went into his singles rubber against Tsitsipas with high hopes on Friday, having beaten the jaded Team Europe star in the first round at Flushing Meadows three weeks ago.
But Tsitsipas, who had complained of burn-out and lack of drive after his four-set defeat to the much lower ranked Kokkinakis in New York, seemed to have been rejuvenated by the more relaxed team competition atmosphere in Berlin as he outplayed the Adelaide man 6-1 6-4.
It was an important win for the Team Europe outfit, captained by Bjorn Borg, after they had earlier gone 1-0 down to John McEnroe's outfit when Francisco Cerundolo, of Argentina, toppled Norway's Casper Ruud 6-4 6-4 in the opener at the indoor hard-court event.
Inspired by Tsitsipas, Bulgarian veteran Grigor Dimitrov then defeated Chilean Alejandro Tabilo 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-2) in a tight straight-sets affair to give Europe the lead, before Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton levelled the tie with victory over Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev in the doubles.
The routine nature of his loss will have frustrated Kokkinakis, who had hot-footed it to Germany for the Laver Cup from Valencia where he had earned two key singles victories for Lleyton Hewitt's Australia team at the Davis Cup finals qualifiers.
"Very satisfied with that type of game I brought today," Tsitsipas said on court at the Uber Arena after giving Borg a hug and clearly enjoying his fourth career singles win in the Ryder Cup-style team competition.
Kokkinakis, the third Australian to represent the World side after event regular Nick Kyrgios and Alex de Minaur, found himself under pressure from the start from the attacking Greek world no.12, who won the first five games for the loss of 11 points.
There was a brief respite when the big-serving world No.78 managed to hold serve to 30 and avoid the dreaded 'bagel', but Tsitsipas wasn't to be denied as he took the opener in just over half an hour.
Once he had been broken in the opening service game of the second set, there was really no way back for the South Australian, even though he battled well for the rest of the 83-minute contest.
Earlier, there had been a rare treat in the Arena when the 86-year-old Laver, the Aussie great who the tournament is named in honour of, got a standing ovation from the crowd and the players themselves while being presented to the teams.
On Friday, the scoring system was that each match win was worth one point, but on Saturday the stakes will be raised with two points per win and on Sunday three points.
The first team to 13 points will win the competition's seventh edition, with McEnroe's men seeking a third successive win.
Also on Friday, the Laver Cup and the ATP tour had announced a five-year extension to their existing agreement, safeguarding the future of the tournament.
