China completed a 3-1 win over the home side in their Davis Cup World Group II encounter at the Sport Ireland National Indoor Arena in Dublin on Sunday.
With the visitors 2-0 up after Saturday's action, there was precious little chance that Ireland could turn this tie around against a team with players ranked higher across the board.
So it proved although, to their credit, the Irish pair of veteran David O'Hare and Conor Gannon, who only graduated out of the University of Memphis a few months ago, did their level best to get a win for the home side before succumbing 6-2 7-5.
The Chinese duo of Jle Cui and Fajing Sun are both in the world’s top 300 in singles, and they also travel and play together in selected doubles tournaments.
When O’Hare was broken in the third game, the signs were ominous. Two games later, O’Hare left a ball that he thought was going long but it landed just inside the baseline and after another brilliant service return, the visitors were 4-1 up with two breaks.
Ireland had three break points in the next game but couldn’t convert any of them as the Chinese took the opening set.
Ireland went 4-3 ahead in a far more competitive second second set, with Gannon forging the lead courtesy of two successive aces.
However, at 5-5, the Chinese had break point on three occasions. Gannon pumped down quality first serves but the calibre of return was decent, too and on the third opportunity the Chinese broke and served out to love for the victory.
One additional match was played to give the crowd a decent day out, a bit of bang for their buck.
Fajing Sun came back out to play Irish number one Michael Agwi in the dead rubber and the Chinese player stormed through the first set 6-0.
Agwi was going for winners too soon and captain Conor Niland told him to work his way into the points and not to be so hasty.
Good advice as it turned out as he took the second set 6-2 and the pre-match agreement was that if it went to a deciding set, that a championship tie-break would be used.
Cheered on by a vociferous crowd, Agwi took the breaker 10-5 to give a little bit of home comfort on a weekend that delivered the expected overall defeat.
Ireland remain in Group II and their next match will be in February, with the opposition and host nation still to be decided.
