GB on road to Rouen

with his team-mates as they sat watching helplessly on.

Chardy, a surprise inclusion ahead of the more experienced and higher-ranked Gilles Simon, justified captain Yannick Noah’s selection by brushing aside Evans by producing the sort of winners the Birmingham-based player felt were not within his repertoire on this surface.

In truth, more hope of keeping the tie level going into the doubles had been placed on the shoulders of Edmund.

The 22-year-old does like clay and although his opponent Pouille is 30 ranking places above his own 47th in the world, there was a feeling the 23-year-old Pouille was there for the taking.

“I came out of the match and said ‘You gave it your best effort, it just wasn’t good enough today’,” said Edmund.

“And you want it to be good enough because that’s when it matters – today. It is easy to look back and say where I could have done better, points where I could have done better, some better choices and better execution, but when it counted I just didn’t get it done.”

Crucially, Pouille played those big points much better, racking up a 7-5, 7-6, 6-3 win in two hours and 11 minutes.

He was also helped by the occasional friendly bounce on a court that is showing alarming signs of wear and tear with a weekend of tennis left to play.

Edmund refused to use the awkward surface as an excuse. “I just think that’s a clay court – it’s not a smooth surface, you’re going to get some dodgy bounces compared to a hard court,” he said.

“It’s obviously annoying at the time when you do get a bad bounce, but it does even itself up in general.”