Australia's hopes of returning to the head table of women's tennis are hanging by a thread after Alicia Molik's team lost the opening singles rubbers of their Fed Cup World Group II tie against Ukraine in Kharkiv.
Ashleigh Barty took the first set against world No.13 Evina Svitolina before Svitolina won the match 4-6 6-1 6-2.
Barty raced through her opening service game in the second set but from then on it was all one-way traffic as the Taiwan Open champion won 11 consecutive games to take the second set in 24 minutes and set up a commanding 5-0 lead in the third.
"I'm unhappy with the result but I did the best I could today," Barty said.
"You have to go out there with the true belief that you're going to win. If you ask anyone they'll always say 'yeah I think I can win' but you have to truly believe it.
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
"My serve is one of my main weapons and I think it let me down a little bit today. But I'm certainly not discouraged and we'll give it a red-hot crack tomorrow."
Molik was full of praise for Barty.
"If you didn't know anything about tennis and watched that first set you'd think she (Barty) looked like the No.13 player in the world," she said.
Molik said she was confident Barty and former world doubles No.3 Casey Dellacqua would be able to get the job done given the opportunity.
"That would be a dream," she said.
"In the doubles we're really confident. I hope for Casey that the team can get it to that point. It's not really the result we wanted today."
Earlier, Daria Gavrilova was defeated in straight sets by Lesia Tsurenko.
Tsurenko kept her perfect record against Gavrilova intact with a 6-2 6-3 win.
Gavrilova will face long-time friend Svitolina in Sunday's opening rubber before Barty and Tsurenko do battle ahead of the potentially decisive doubles clash.
